


Resurrection of the Body

by Leni_Jess



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: wizard_love, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-03
Updated: 2011-09-03
Packaged: 2017-10-23 09:27:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 39,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/248776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leni_Jess/pseuds/Leni_Jess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione's memories of being tortured in Malfoy Manor include images Bellatrix created of Lucius hurting her in a different way. Now she finds herself and Snape helping him using sex magic, working from a script neither of them can read, getting closer to him all the time. Being a Gryffindor really stinks, sometimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Sex magic, rock 'n' roll, and Slytherin debates on good and evil. Also angst, romance, and maybe even a touch of fluff (avert!). Oh yes, EWE and Snape is alive, too, though the story's faithful to canon otherwise.
> 
> More seriously, intermittent dubious consent on both sides.

  
**Prologue**

 _Monday 8 June 1999_

"Harry! Don't tell me you left him alone at Grimmauld Place all weekend!"

Defensively Harry replied, "He's not alone; the house-elves are there."

His tone made it clear he knew he was at fault.

"You know that's not the same."

"They look after him better than I can."

Hermione managed to control her snarl. The point wasn't to tell him off, or even to get him to admit he'd done wrong; but to get him to behave better towards the helpless guest he had invited into his home.

How odd to be squabbling over Lucius Malfoy. "They can't communicate with him, you know that. Professor Snape explained it all to us. He can't feel, or speak, or see –"

"I don't see why it's so important to have me around."

She exhaled. "Because he can sense your mind, and _nothing else_. You know what sensory deprivation is, and what it does; I explained that to you."

When Lucius had been Kissed, and, uniquely, seemed lifeless rather than merely stricken by the absence of his soul, Draco had taken his body to the Hogwarts infirmary rather than to St Mungo's; he had learned to trust Poppy Pomfrey as well as Severus Snape. After the mediwitch and the Defence and Potions expert examined the body, they agreed that Lucius was in some form of stasis. He was not conscious, he was not breathing, his heart was not beating nor was his blood circulating, but he was not dead, either.

"There's nothing I could have done about the weekend anyway; we had a match. If I'm on the team, I have to play. For that matter, all next week I'll be away, because we're playing the Ballycastle Bats in that charity match for the war orphans, and we have a lot of practices set for their pitch – or do you think Malfoy's more important than kids who never hurt anyone?"

"You could come home at night," she suggested, keeping her voice neutral. "That would help to keep him on the level."

Harry shook his head. "Coach doesn't like that. Besides, Ginny's managed to arrange to be there; her exams end this week."

"And Coach is all right with that?"

He shrugged. "The married fellows can bring their wives – just no late nights before the actual match, for however long it runs."

"There's nothing stopping her moving into Grimmauld Place with you, though, now she's finishing at Hogwarts. If she's prepared to stand up to Molly."

Harry scrubbed his hand through his messy hair, half dislodging his glasses.

"Look, Hermione, you don't understand."

"No, I don't. So explain it to me."

Harry looked around, then took hold of her upper arm in the way she so disliked and steered her towards the coffee shop a few paces off.

Hermione looked up at the shop sign. Not a wizarding café, of course, in this district, but Caffe Nero's coffee was acceptable. She allowed herself to be steered into the queue at the counter, where she slipped Harry's hold and ordered a standard long black – no, no milk, thank you – as patiently as she could, and then over to a table set a little apart. She sat down, while he went back for their coffees. He was a lot better about things like that these days; Ginny seemed determined to train him up to her standards.

"So." She pushed her Italian-style cup and saucer to one side. "Explain, then."

"You know Ginny and I don't want to get married yet – she's working up to a place in the Pride's team, and some time in the next couple of years or so, I suppose, I'll be taking up that place Kingsley offered me in the Auror training program." The defensive note returned to Harry's voice. "I'll have to work hard, I know that, not having done my NEWTS."

Hermione didn't revisit last year's argument about why he (and Ron) should join her at Hogwarts to do the accelerated course for those who had missed their seventh year, like themselves and all the Muggleborns, or had it badly disrupted, like Neville, who hadn't been to classes at all after Christmas. Ginny had been lucky to pass her sixth year exams, which had been held in late summer, and her seventh year had been taught separately.

Last year Hermione had made plain her disapproval of Harry's decision to take up the first of his rewards, a position as alternate Seeker with the Falcons, giving their excellent but ageing Seeker extra rest time, and Harry training and orientation time. It was good for the team, for the current Seeker, and for Harry. It was a more sensible decision than sometimes came out of the fountain of gratitude and gifts for The Boy Who Lived. Harry never saw her point that accepting that offer, and then Kingsley's, meant that he had no other choice of career, unless he distinguished himself in one or both. No one could be a Seeker forever, or an Auror in the field, either. However, she could see that he didn't want to be treated like a child again, after a year of chasing Horcruxes and of defying all Voldemort's supporters.

So she just said, "It may be easier, being taught by the Auror training staff – who don't know what a lazy layabout you were at Hogwarts, and mightn't be standing ready to jump on you if they think they see a sign of it."

Harry rolled his eyes, but he looked grateful for the concession. He said ruefully, "They're more likely to be standing by for signs of a swollen head. And if you're not there, Hermione, I think I might work better."

She wasn't sure what that meant, but to her screwed up face he offered, "If I can't get you to do my work for me, I'll have to do it for myself."

Fair enough, and another sign that Harry was being sensible about the consequences of his reckless decision not to go back to school.

She forced him back to the topic of the moment. "What's not getting married yet to do with looking after Mr Malfoy as you said you would, when we found out you and he could sort of sense each other?"

"You mean as Snape said I ought to." However, he went on, being much better about Professor Snape these days, even if not much easier in his presence, "The thing is, I want Ginny to move into Grimmauld Place with me, and she won't while he's there."

"Doesn't want to share?" Her voice was cool; she had had plenty of opportunity to notice that Ginny was most reluctant to grant her any share of Harry's time.

Rather sharply Harry said, "You've forgotten what he did to her in second year?"

Carefully she replied, "You've managed to forgive him for the things he did to you, or tried to – and he didn't have much chance to do anything, the last couple of years of the war, first in Azkaban and then wandless."

She had never told him what Bellatrix had used Lucius Malfoy to do to her in addition to the knife and the Cruciatus. She still didn't think that talking about it would help. When she was awake, at any rate, she had no problem acknowledging that Lucius had had nothing to do with Bellatrix's Legilimentic tortures.

"Ginny doesn't really think he can hurt her now, does she? I don't blame her for holding it against him – who could, it was a terrible thing to do, trying to sacrifice her to Tom –"

Harry interrupted. "I think she's worried more about what he might do to _me_."

Hermione blinked; she hadn't expected that. Lucius Malfoy was about as helpless as a man could be and still be alive – and whether he was alive was still a matter being disputed by the Wizengamot, given how atypically he had reacted to being Kissed.

Narcissa had been granted her divorce, but Draco wasn't acknowledged either as the owner of Malfoy Manor, or as his father's trustee, or guardian, or deputy. Draco's lawyers were persistent, if not effective, but Voldemort hadn't been the only power in the land happy with the opportunity to punish the Malfoys.

"She had Tom in her head for nearly a year, Hermione. Why _wouldn't_ she be afraid of me having Lucius in mine? He's not exactly reformed, is he? After the Battle, and after Mrs Malfoy walked out on him for what he dropped Draco and her into, he spent all his time politicking his way back into power."

Ginny and Harry had a point there. No one knew exactly what Lucius Malfoy had been after, until he had been Kissed by a (possibly) rogue Dementor a couple of months ago, but he had certainly been putting a lot of energy into repairing his reputation. It wasn't as if he had a family at home any more, to devote his time to, though Draco had still visited.

"Okay, I can see that, but Lucius isn't even talking to you, is he? It's not like Legilimency – even if Professor Snape says that's probably the basis for it. He can't force you to think things."

"I know, I know. I tried what you suggested, putting up a picture of writing in a book, so we could use words, but –" Harry shrugged. "I don't know if it's him or me, but we didn't get very far.

"But whatever it is, it scares Ginny. She's determined she won't move in with me until he's out of the house. She's not going to have a fight with her mum about living with me if it means she's living with Lucius Malfoy too. And that, Hermione," he looked her firmly in the eye, "is why I'm not Apparating home from Ireland every night next week. I want some time with Ginny. Lucius will just have to put up with it." Fair-mindedly he added, "I know what she's doing. She thinks I'll give in, and tell Draco, or Snape, or someone, that he's going to have to be someone else's responsibility. I probably will, too. Ginny means a lot more to me than Malfoy ever will."

Hermione could see that, and acknowledge that if Ginny was being hard on a man who desperately needed help, she, like Harry, was entitled to a happy relationship untroubled by a man who had never done anything good to or for either of them.

"Have you told him yet? That you'll be away again?"

Harry scowled. "I'm never sure how much he understands – not a lot, I don't think."

She frowned too, but Harry said energetically, "What am I supposed to do, Hermione? That writing thing didn't work out. Make signs at him, like a Muggle boy scout playing Indians? Send up smoke signals?"

He was being sarcastic, but she saw his frustration.

She could suggest other ways of trying to communicate, since they seemed to be able to convey images (however woolly) to each other. Perhaps the first thing to do was to find some other way of looking after Lucius Malfoy's mental and physical security, and not just to let Harry get on with his life.

Harry must have been thinking about the same thing.

"After the way the Aurors went through Malfoy Manor – they didn't trash the place, but they certainly trashed the wards, and as far as the house is concerned, just like the Wizengamot, Draco isn't in charge, so he can't mend them. It wouldn't be safe to put him there, even if there was someone who could move in to keep him company."

She nodded. "Draco hasn't the time to do that job, between the lawyers, looking after as much of Malfoy family business as he's managed to get control of, and the therapy."

"I thought you were crazy, suggesting he do that, and go to a Muggle for it, too, but it does seem to be doing some good."

"As far as the counsellor's concerned, he's treating Draco for anxiety after a long period of stress – about as far away as you could get from the wizarding world and the actual causes of the anxiety."

"How much looking did you have to do, to find one who wouldn't try to find out why Draco was such a mess?"

"A bit, but there are some psychiatrists willing to work with what the patient's prepared to face. It may not be perfect, but it's better than no treatment. And yes, Draco does seem much calmer than he was when he came back to Hogwarts with me – he was terribly jumpy, then, and far too quiet." She smiled. "He doesn't seem to have any problems arguing with the various lawyers, or outsnarking the Gringotts trustees, with never a rude word spoken."

Harry grinned. He had been present for some of those discussions, when Draco had wanted to let off steam. Hermione knew Harry still thought it odd that she and Draco should have become cautiously friendly during that last year at Hogwarts, but he did understand that the two knew more about each other's problems than anyone else at school, even Neville, truly could have.

"I'll go to see Professor Snape," she decided. "Maybe he'll have a suggestion."

"He can't help us with it himself," Harry pointed out. "The Headmistress isn't going to want to have Lucius Malfoy in the castle's dungeons." He hesitated. "Hermione, I know you're busy too, between your Healer apprenticeship and doing Muggle medicine studies at University College –"

"Pre-med," she corrected. "I got a place, provided I manage to get enough A Levels, using that Time Turner Kingsley borrowed from the Department of Mysteries for me. So far I'm just sitting in on summer science lectures and a few general medical seminars; I don't start official studies until September, even if I'm full-time at St Mungo's now."

Harry grinned, momentarily distracted. "Kingsley said you were old enough now to decide for yourself whether to burn yourself out studying."

"If Healer Derwent hadn't said I'd be okay, and he'd supervise, I don't suppose for a minute Kingsley would've done that, Order of Merlin or not."

"Yeah, well, you survived, and it gave you something to distract you from everything else. You _enjoy_ studying, after all. Anyway. I know you're busy, and studying as hard as ever, but is there a chance you could move into Grimmauld Place while I'm away, and hold his hand?" He added quickly, "You don't have to touch him, after all. He couldn't feel it. His house-elf Tiko does all the, um, maintenance."

Hermione hesitated, but she knew she had let herself in for this. It would, at least, give her the chance to confirm that Tiko was carrying out all the physiotherapy exercises for Mr Malfoy, to make sure he would still have muscle tone and strength, if he ever came out of this paralysis. If the research she and Professor Snape – mostly Snape – were doing ever provided a way to get him out.

"Yes. All right, Harry. When do you leave?"

Harry brightened, possibly because he hadn't had to argue her into it. "This Friday morning. Any chance you could come earlier, see if you can, um, talk to him, whatever you like to call it?"

"Draco can't, and he's a better Occlumens than either of us."

"Ye-es. He trained you that last year at Hogwarts, and me too, after you'd both done your NEWTs at Easter. But I'm a rotten Legilimens, even worse than he is. You're better than either of us. That might make a difference."

She noticed that Harry didn't mention that it had finally dawned on him that an Auror who was an Occlumens could look after himself better and do his job more safely. He might want to fiddle about with Quidditch for a while, taking a rest from responsibilities greater than turning up to practice and doing his best to catch the Snitch, but that didn't mean he didn't think about what he would need, to be a successful Auror.

Harry added diffidently, "And maybe Draco doesn't really want to be that close to his dad."

"He's really concerned for him," she objected.

"Yes, I know. Loves him. He wouldn't have put himself through all that in sixth year if he didn't. But, Hermione, Draco knows damned well that his father is far tougher than he is. Mentally. Even after a year of prison and another of being Voldemort's scapegoat." Harry made a face. "Maybe he feels – not even thinks, but feels – he might just get rolled over and drowned, if he gets that close."

Hermione had her own problems with Lucius Malfoy, but she knew quite well they were in her mind, not his. She didn't think she'd find it impossible to try to communicate with him. And someone had to. She sighed. She mightn't be Harry's research and development person, any more, but eight years of working to make sure she supported him hadn't worn off yet. Also, if she could learn to "speak" with Lucius Malfoy, and he with her, it would be a fascinating experiment, and possibly useful with someone else later on. A man who had been Kissed, but reacted unexpectedly, might make a research paper, if they were successful; but the skill of communicating with a locked mind unreachable by physical means might be used with severely curse-damaged adults and children.

"I can try," she said, and was rewarded by his brilliant grin.

Harry and even Ron (still, despite their acrimonious break-up) had such touching faith that she could do whatever she undertook. They had never understood how afraid she was of failure, of not measuring up. Or that so much of her success depended on working hard and never giving up, even though that was something Harry, at least, had mastered too. Just, not in school.

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈

  


  
**Stasis**   


Before Harry left for Ireland he did his best to show Hermione how he and Lucius Malfoy communicated, essentially shoving images at each other's minds. It seemed very crude to her, but she did no better. At first. Harry had been gone for several days when she returned from an evening seminar at University College Hospital, entered Lucius's room, and discovered that he realised she was not Harry. Her Legilimency-like probe let her see he was apprehensive, and to her surprise she saw that the images forming in his mind all conveyed queries about identity: several images of people, with blank faces, all in wizard's robes, and finally a faceless head with a question mark faintly superimposed. He went through the sequence carefully again; there could be no mistake. He knew she wasn't Harry, and wanted to know who had been "talking" with him.

"Oh, that's _much_ better," she murmured appreciatively, and constructed an image of herself, as he might have seen her as a Hogwarts student, but with her wild curls somewhat exaggerated, and pushed it gently towards his mind. It didn't seem a good idea to recreate images of herself as he had in fact seen her, over the years; mostly they had been traumatic occasions for her, and some of them must have been unpleasant for him.

It seemed odd to be doing Legilimency without making eye contact, but she knew Professor Snape had already told Harry not to worry about that, but to concentrate on forming images clearly. No doubt Snape would come up with an explanation sometime; she could research it herself, later, when learning to do it, and researching his condition and how to alleviate it, no longer had such a high priority.

It took her several tries to construct a sufficiently clear image that he grasped it; she would need to practise if she wanted to match the skill he was showing. At last, reluctantly, she made him an image of herself as she had been the day she had been dragged into Malfoy Manor by the Snatchers: thin, worn, grubby, and frightened. He shied away; there was no other word for it. Presumably he felt guilty, unless everything from that time upset his peace. She returned him the image of herself as a student, then gave him another, of herself in her St Mungo's Healer apprentice robes, paler green than those of a fully accredited Healer.

In reply he formed an image of the main entry of St Mungo's. She tried him with Grimmauld Place's street frontage, but he didn't recognise it, so she replaced it with the front hall and Walburga Black's portrait. That wasn't there any more, but if he had been here in the last twenty or so years he should remember it. He did.

Hermione felt they were getting on famously.

She had come to his room without leaving her book satchel or her outer clothes in the bedroom she had used for years, so she dumped them on the table by the door and sat down in the armchair near his bed, prepared to work on this so long as they both could manage it.

It didn't take her long to decide that symbols were convenient shortcuts. He had already used a question mark, so she introduced ticks and crosses for Yes and No, and the kind of diagonal slash found on Muggle signs to mean "No", or "Don't do that", whether it was dogs or driving up a one-way street. Mathematical operators were useful, too, and a student of Arithmancy used many. He knew those, and added more to her list.

Then she showed him an image of a digital clock showing the date as well as the time. Wizards might not use them, but she led up to it with an image of the kind of clock common in the wizarding world, a clock face with Roman numerals and fancy hands, such as could be seen in the International Portkey Hall near Kings Cross, and then the kind of calendar that Professor Snape, at any rate, kept on his desk. Locked inside himself as he was, he must have had no sense of time passing; it might help him to know that it was no more than two months ago that the Dementor had attacked him. The lapse of time might seem infinite. If it did, he had stood up to it quite well. She brought up the digital clock again. He responded with excitement at this hard information, she thought: he tossed her a set of four large green ticks, bouncing slightly.

She laughed involuntarily; it would never have occurred to her than Lucius Malfoy had a sense of humour. He showed no sign of being aware of her response; that sobered her again.

It was some time before he asked her about his son, at last bringing up a picture of Draco, in business robes rather than the black they had all worn at Hogwarts. To minimise any worry he might feel, she showed him a green tick. He responded with a question mark.

Hermione thought it might be time to try actual written words on him – perhaps as printed carefully on a school blackboard. She tried a numbered list: 1 Lawyers. 2 Malfoy business. At that point he inserted a green tick, but it was very small, followed by another query. He probably wanted to know why Draco wasn't here, wasn't trying to talk with him. She continued her list: 3 Healers, and interpolated an image of Draco as she had seen him recently: tired, harried, and too thin, although healthy. She added a quick equation: 1997 + 1998 + V = a view of a very worn-looking Draco, as he had been when he first returned to Hogwarts. After a moment he gave her a small red tick. So they could use colour, too.

He didn't ask about his ex-wife.

Eventually he tired, and showed it not only in creating images more slowly, but also in their lack of sharpness.

She brought up an image of a school blackboard with the "No" slash across it, then an arrow, then a clock showing tomorrow's date and an hour that would allow her to spend some time with him before going off to St Mungo's. He responded with another small green tick, and an image of a flaming torch slowly fading. She returned both images, then got to her feet to collect her belongings. She was surprised, glancing at her watch, to realise how long she had been with him. No wonder she too felt tired. It had been hard work, but it had been a very productive session, too. Maybe she was doing so much better than Harry had because she was by far the better Legilimens. She wondered how good Lucius was. Probably better than Harry, but maybe not very good.

Yawning, she dumped her stuff then went down to the kitchen. There she found Kreacher had left a meal for her under a warming charm. She had just started on it, suddenly starving hungry, when the old elf popped into view and, without needing to ask her if she wanted it, brought her a steaming teapot with the green tea she found comforting at night. She thanked him, as she always did, and he rolled his big eyes and sniffed, as he frequently did, though without the malice he used to show.

"Kreacher, please ask Tiko to settle Mr Malfoy for the night."

"Tiko doing; just being waiting for Miss Hermione leaving."

She nodded. There wasn't a lot to be done. Lucius Malfoy didn't breathe, didn't eat or drink or eliminate; didn't sweat, either. His hair and nails hadn't grown a millimetre, as far as Hermione could tell, in the six weeks Lucius had been here. Tiko's main responsibilities were to exercise his body, and to make sure no damage was done to it. It was for themselves, rather than for Lucius, that Tiko carefully washed him every day, dressed him in a clean nightshirt, and brushed out the long pale blond hair and braided it so it didn't tangle when he was moved. He also made sure the Muggle eye-mask Hermione had brought was in place most of the time, to protect Lucius's eyes. That was much less disconcerting than the black silk blindfold Professor Snape had supplied when he brought Lucius to Grimmauld Place.

Hermione had some reading to do tonight, but first she would Floo Professor Snape. It might indeed be best to visit him at Hogwarts, if he would allow her to come through his Floo, which these days admitted visitors, but only those pre-selected. She suspected she was one of very few, and took care to ask permission first, always.

Professor Snape might not need to be paranoid about security nowadays, in that neither Voldemort nor ex-Death Eaters would trouble him, but there were many witches and wizards who considered his grant of amnesty and his Order of Merlin to be inappropriate, no matter how much PR work Kingsley had had done to restore his good name. Professor Snape went out in public only a little more frequently than he used to do, when he had had two masters and too much work to do.

When she stepped into Snape's sitting room on the third floor of the north tower, where he had his private desk and papers, she saw he looked as weary as Draco did, these days. The Hogwarts term was almost over, and he would have the summer free. However, he had come back to teaching Defence in early December last year, long before the Healers at St Mungo's thought proper, just to get away from all the people who seemed to think they had the right to walk up to his bedside and abuse him. And now, instead of being able to rest, or do such Potions research as seemed good to him, as a change from teaching, he was spending all his time researching Lucius Malfoy's condition.

Though he was tired, his interest in the work hadn't faltered.

"Miss Granger, how did you know I'd found confirmation today of the reason why Lucius reacted so strangely to being Kissed?"

"You said he was somehow in Stasis, that old punishment from before Dementors were created – where criminals were imprisoned in their own bodies."

"Yes, and someone, long ago, must have done some interesting magics to ensure that if the Kiss didn't have the expected effect, the old penalty came into play."

He scowled, and waved her to one of the armchairs by the empty fireplace. "Tea?" he asked.

He must have quite a bit to tell her; that offer wasn't always made.

"Thank you."

Severus Snape generally served her green tea with bergamot, since he had found she liked it; it was far more relaxing than Earl Grey, which was as pleasantly flavoured, but made from the stronger black tea leaves. Hermione took her coffee medium strong and black, but she preferred a more delicate tea.

He turned his head. "Letty! Miss Granger's tea, please, and white tea for me."

He must have a headache.

"I can go, if you need to rest," she offered.

"I'll sleep later."

In a moment Letty popped in carrying a tray with two teapots, and briskly summoned cups and saucers from Snape's cupboard for both of them, setting them neatly on the small tables beside the armchairs. She bowed, and without waiting for Snape to complete his murmured thanks, disappeared again.

"It's because he has Vampire ancestry."

"Vampires can _breed_?" she asked faintly. She had thought that occasionally-heard slander on Lucius Malfoy referred to his character, not his bloodlines.

"Yes." Snape didn't seem to be moved to provide more information. After a moment he added, "The Malfoys don't advertise it, and it's long enough ago, as I found out today. No one believes it, of course; it's just an insult, not an accusation, and no doubt Lucius's male ancestors have been responding to it as such, rather than protesting.

"Draco took me to the muniments room at Malfoy Manor," he explained. "He had to find the papers, and even to read some of them to me – very careful of their privacy, the Malfoys! However, about eight generations back, a Malfoy cousin married a Vampire – a Norwegian Vampire, so the family's fair colouring wasn't affected. His grandson unexpectedly inherited from his cousin, the head of the family, who fell foul of some Muggle witch-hunter."

"So what did this less than two hundredth part of ancestral blood do for Lucius?"

"More than that, given the way purebloods intermarry."

Given that, Lucius Malfoy might have quite a bit of Vampire blood in him.

"So if it protected him somehow, why doesn't it happen more often?"

"It's still very diluted. Lucius is a strong wizard, and has been aware of the need to protect himself, from before he was fully adult. Not all of his distant relatives who might have earned the Kiss over the years will have had that determination or strength of purpose."

That made sense, but she still didn't understand how Lucius had been able to protect his soul just because he had Vampire ancestry.

"You know Vampires have souls?" he enquired.

"Not like on television," she murmured, and saw him dismiss the query that came to his mind. "If they have souls, and breed, they're not made by biting and sucking the victim's blood, as Muggle legend says?"

"Merlin, of course not! They're born like anyone else. Being bitten by a Vampire is to be avoided, but there's no way it would _make_ you one. You know Horace Slughorn's friend Sanguini?"

Hermione grimaced. "Not a very attractive person."

"Neither am I."

She didn't comment on his self-image, but retorted, "You don't have fangs, and you don't stare intently at people's necks."

"Sanguini is not amiable, but he's properly behaved, and quite a good maker of potions, though not a master. If Sanguini ran afoul of the law, they wouldn't give him to the Dementors. A Vampire is disposed of with the Killing Curse, because a Vampire can protect his soul, hide it safely away." He added, conversationally, "Vampires are an artificial creation, just as Dementors are, and no doubt they were made by a wizard or group of wizards quite as mad. But they were designed to breed true – culled heavily, at first, I understand, to make sure of that. One inborn characteristic is that natural defence against Dementors."

"So they were created after Dementors, long enough afterwards that Dementors had been recognised as dangerous because wizards couldn't control them. Created as guards? Warriors?"

He looked pleased at her ability to reason that out, and nodded. "Created somewhere in eastern Europe, which even now is a much wilder and more dangerous part of the world than this. Warriors, guards, household retainers. Able to protect both themselves and their employers. The Dementor population of Europe," he added dryly, "is rather less than it used to be. The British Ministry always opposed the idea of importing Vampires to control Dementors, because they had a use for them. The Kiss is a much more visible object lesson than Stasis – and at least as vicious. In eastern Europe they still use Stasis, for sufficiently vile offences."

Hermione sighed. That sounded like the British Ministry all right. Ripping a soul away had always seemed to her a horrific punishment, even if it apparently didn't deter many from taking action that might merit such treatment in the eyes of the law.

"So Lucius knew how to do this?"

"I doubt it. It isn't likely he retained the ability to save his soul consciously, after such thinning of the blood. But his determination to survive, I suppose, called up that latent ability. So now," he smiled wryly, wearily, "we have the pleasure of researching how to undo what is no longer a legal punishment, here."

"Undoing Stasis can't have happened often."

"No, and always illicitly, I fancy. No government likes its decrees set aside. It's not as if Stasis is imposed by any other means than the knowing use of an elaborate curse, whereas any stray Dementor may Kiss some unlucky wizard."

"Or be used to destroy one, by a person who can control or negotiate with a Dementor," Hermione murmured.

He glanced at her sharply, then nodded, as he set his empty teacup down and poured a second.

"That was certainly tried by several people, during the War."

"Umbridge failed with Harry and his cousin," she agreed, "but Fudge succeeded in getting rid of Barty Crouch before there could be any inconvenient trial, and before the man could get a word out, almost."

"Draco's looking into who might be responsible for the attack," he informed her.

"Good," she breathed, "but dangerous, surely?"

Snape smirked. "Draco has a new man-of-all-work, who accompanies him everywhere."

"A Vampire." It wasn't a question.

"A young fellow, but well trained. Victor Krum recommended him – you know he works now for Bulgaria's Magical Law Enforcement? He's risen quite rapidly, and on merit."

"We still exchange letters – now that I can safely write to anyone again. I'm glad to hear that, Professor. I hope Draco's being careful, though."

"I think Draco will be a very old man before he stops being extremely careful."

Yes, being Voldemort's plaything would encourage care.

"So you know how Lucius managed to do it. But you were already calling it Stasis."

"It's unmistakeable. There is no other state that can be magically induced, where a man does not breathe, but yet lives, his body uncorrupted."

Hermione shivered. The wizarding world used desperately cruel punishments. Stasis would quickly drive a man mad, isolated from any outside stimulus. Lucius Malfoy had been in it for nearly two months. Perhaps that strong will was preserving his sanity, as it had preserved his soul.

"We can talk, now, though not in words, just in images," she said, offering her own good news.

Professor Snape listened with great interest to her report.

"That's much better than Potter's been able to do, though he seemed to be trying hard, and persisting."

"Yes. But Harry wants out." She explained about Ginny, as briefly and fairly as she could.

Snape didn't say anything, but his expression was sufficiently revealing of his disapproval of such weakness. Hermione didn't try to defend Harry. She could see his need for a normal life free of obligation, much better, probably, than Snape could, who had lived with a crushing weight of obligation almost all his life. He held that he still owed a Wizard's Debt to her and Draco for bringing him from the Shrieking Shack in time for Madam Pomfrey to save his life. Draco, she knew, denied that any debt to him existed, given what Snape had done for him on and after the Astronomy Tower. She had been upset at the idea Snape owed her anything: not only had he taken care of Harry and Ron and herself all through school, but she planned to become a Healer, and Healers, like mediwitches, earned no Wizards Debts from their patients.

"Professor McGonagall won't permit Mr Malfoy to be kept here, will she?"

"Not even in the summer, when there are no students. She has to be much more careful than Albus Dumbledore ever bothered to be; she has not his powers, nor his prestige to support any eccentric decisions."

"Then I suppose I'd better take him to my flat."

"Can't you just move back into Grimmauld Place, where there's plenty of room, for him and you and his house-elf? Weren't you staying there during vacations in your last year here?"

"Ginny," she said shortly.

"Ah. I would have thought her more strong-minded."

"She's definitely strong-minded," Hermione replied, with a dryness she couldn't suppress.

He accepted that with a nod, and moved on. "Yours is a student flat, I suppose? Is there room for a second person? A house-elf does not need much room, but he needs some."

"I know Tiko will have to come; I couldn't manage without him. Lucius needs a guardian as well as a carer. Yes, we'll fit. My bedroom has two beds. I have a bedroom; it's a proper flat, even if it's small; not student housing." To his raised eyebrow she said, a little defensively, "He's blind and deaf; I don't see how privacy or propriety can be an issue."

"So long as you yourself are firmly of that belief," he agreed after a moment. "If we find a means to get him out of Stasis, though – Lucius Malfoy can be very demanding at close quarters."

"If he's not in Stasis, he can go home, or stay with Draco," she said firmly.

"Very well. Tomorrow," he changed the subject abruptly, "I'm going back to Malfoy Manor. I do have the run of the library, if not of the muniments room. I'll stay there as long as I need, to see if there's anything useful."

"I thought I'd explore Grimmauld Place's library. Harry won't mind that. He'll probably let me take away anything I find, too. Sirius thought he'd cleaned out all the Dark books, but either he was very casual about it, or what's left can hide, at need."

"Very likely, in that house."

Hermione decided she wouldn't say she had been joking.

"Miss Granger?"

"Yes?"

"Do not allow yourself to be distracted by books that look interesting. That's the downward path."

He should know. She shivered again, and used her wand to reheat the tea in the pretty cream teapot before she poured herself a last cup, to warm the sudden chill from her body and mind.

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈

There seemed to be more people than her little flat would hold, the day she moved Lucius Malfoy in. Draco came to see his father; Harry came to bid his guest farewell; Professor Snape came to supervise and to check out security; Tiko did the actual work of removal and installation; Kreacher brought unspecified supplies, consulting only with Tiko on where they should be stored; and Draco's minder, Lajos, did his own security check then courteously faded into the background somewhere near her front door. Crookshanks retreated to the top of one of the kitchen cupboards, jumping from the bench that separated the narrow galley space from her living room.

Draco clearly thought her flat was comparable to a broom cupboard. Professor Snape gave her books a quick inspection and absent-mindedly selected one. Harry got himself and anyone who wanted a butterbeer from her tiny pantry. Tiko claimed the laundry alcove as his personal space; she supposed he'd be washing her clothes and linens as well as Lucius's nightshirts and sheets, and resigned herself to it, as her time at home would most usefully be spent with Lucius. Hermione made tea for Snape and herself and suggested Draco might like to have another try at communicating with his father.

She had earlier described the progress she and Lucius had made, and familiarised him with their agreed stock of shortcuts; she thought Draco wasn't hopeful, but he certainly wanted to try.

Once he was shut in her bedroom she herded her remaining guests into chairs, though Lajos moved his dining chair to the front door, while she took the other one herself. Professor Snape had her only armchair, and Harry the small sofa which would just take Draco too.

Harry might have become used to the spaciousness of Grimmauld Place, but after his cupboard under the stairs the shared dormitory at Hogwarts had been palatial. He was comfortable in her flat, and put his butterbeer down to go to the CD player sitting on the lowest of her bookshelves and put in a CD. He was thoughtful enough to choose a set of English folksongs, and to keep the volume low. It gave him something to pay attention to other than Professor Snape, without being overtly rude.

Snape put the book down, with some regret, she thought, and picked up his teacup instead.

"You are sure you'll be comfortable, sharing such a small place with a man for whom you have no particular fondness?"

"Compared to student housing, this is liberal. If I didn't have that big fat purse that came with the Order of Merlin I'd be in something a lot more cramped. It's not as if I could share, besides not wanting to, since I'm doing both magical and Muggle studies."

"And you're outside the influence of the magic of Diagon Alley, if that Muggle music machine will run?"

"I'm close enough it would interfere, if I hadn't charmed the player and my computer and a few other things. Harry knows not to do magic on them or near them; you please remember too, Professor."

He nodded and said, "Warn Draco. He won't think twice."

She didn't say that Ron didn't think about it either, and had caused her notebook computer to have fits several times. He had never come here, preferring to see her at Grimmauld Place, with Harry as intermediary, as they tried to fumble their way back to friendship. He still resented her refusal to marry him instead of going back to Hogwarts, though even his mother had thought it impractical to get married so soon and with so small an income as his had been a year ago.

Instead she asked, "Have you found any useful references, Professor?"

The black eyes gleamed. Yes, he had.

"A very old large book of rituals – really, a collection of parchments sewn together and bound – carefully concealed in Lucius's library. I don't think it's been touched in generations."

By now Harry was paying attention; Lajos had been alerted by her question.

"Its name is _The Book of Small Changes_. Naturally the rituals it contains – those I can read – effect major change. One of the rituals undoes the Stasis curse: Ending Stasis."

Harry said eagerly, "So you can fix it?"

Hermione, though, could tell Snape thought it wouldn't be as easy as that.

"No," he said flatly. "Not without a lot more information. However, I hope to find enough. There's another book from the Malfoy library that will be useful, though it's not sufficient. You should keep looking, Miss Granger."

Draco returned before they could discuss it further. He looked elated, but his expression faded back to sadness soon enough, though not the dumb misery she had learned to hate seeing in his face.

"I can't talk with him as you're doing, Hermione, but he knew me. It's such a relief to know he's – well, _not_ all right, but still himself, still strong in his mind. May I come back, sometimes?"

"Of course! And if I'm not here, Tiko can let you in."

Professor Snape frowned, she noticed, but Draco shook his head.

"No, I think you should be here when anyone at all is let in. Tiko is looking after him very well, but he's never had to take care of security. I'll call you on that Muggle phone thing you fixed for me."

"Okay, then. I'll put some suitable protection charms in place."

"I ought to go, I postponed an appointment." Draco sounded apologetic.

"You all ought to go," Professor Snape said firmly. "I shall stay to assist with the charms."

Hermione certainly wasn't going to reject that offer.

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈

The next day Snape came back, and laid a parcel on her kitchen bench. It proved to contain a mirror, the glass just large enough to reflect her head if she stood close, but the frame, oh, the gleaming silver frame was a miracle of Art Nouveau design, with a geometrically rendered ivy tendril weaving around three of its sides. English, she thought, rather than French, but she didn't know more than she had picked up going around museums. It looked terrifyingly expensive, and was almost certainly unique. She loved it on sight, and was horrified.

Why should Snape give her something so valuable?

He couldn't have been using Legilimency, but he was a mind-reader, all the same.

"Communication, girl," he said, rather impatiently.

That made her feel stupid. She remembered the mirror Sirius had given Harry, to allow two-way communication, whose broken shard Aberforth Dumbledore had somehow tapped into, to speak to Harry. This must be one of another such pair. But Snape was not a member of an old pureblood family which might have such precious relics to lend.

"Thank you," she said meekly, and risked asking, "Where did it come from?"

He relieved her worry about whether he had had to pay for it.

"If one is on good terms with the Hogwarts house-elves, it is remarkable what they can produce from ten centuries of accumulation of magical devices."

"This is quite new, in wizarding terms."

"And therefore not so valuable that they'll worry too much about the Headmistress being reluctant to lend it. I am the Defence Master, and entitled to have such things. You know how to use it?"

"Speak your name to the mirror?"

"If I'm in my rooms, I'll hear you. If not, a charm will tell me when I return that you spoke. Yours will do the same."

Hermione suppressed her rising giggle at the thought of a wizarding answering machine. Wizards could be very practical, however little they might seem so to a technology-oriented Muggle.

She fastened it to the wall near her front door, at head height – it might as well be useful in a mundane way also. She didn't wear makeup, but it would allow her to confirm her hair was as tidy as possible before she left her flat.

"Have you found anything helpful yet at Grimmauld Place?"

"Just a couple of general references, so far; nothing one could act on. But one of the books mentions another, which it said has actual guidance. I'm going to search the library for it later this morning, as it's the weekend."

"I haven't finished with the Malfoy library yet, either."

"Would you like to speak with Lucius? You're a far better Legilimens than I, so it ought to be easier. He can't have been in any way aware, when you had him in the infirmary at Hogwarts."

"I think not. We have had a – variable relationship, over the last twenty some years, and it's possible I'd distress him if I entered his mind while he was unable to defend himself. I don't doubt he'll be able to remember many occasions when he took advantage of me, after all."

"Of course you wouldn't try to take advantage," she said cheekily.

"I'll keep Legilimising him for when I can twist his tail without fear of unfortunate consequences," he said dryly.

That sounded more like a Slytherin, yes.

When Hermione came home that night she had a very promising book with her, or rather, a bound manuscript, which seemed to be some Black wizard's records of experiments in removing esoteric curses. No doubt Blacks were cursed, as well as cursing, sometimes. It included instructions for reversing Stasis, though they were quite general. Perhaps that was what Snape complained of in the older book he had found. She thought if she studied it carefully enough, she might get usable information that they could safely act on. She didn't tell Lucius about the book. It was far too early to risk tormenting him with hope, but she did give him some hints.

She conveyed the image of Snape working diligently in his private Potions laboratory in the dungeons, and reading old books, and of herself doing the same. Lucius finally successfully interpreted this as advice that they were trying to do something to help his physical state. Hermione was surprised at the confusion that clouded his mental images once he understood that. Confusion and, she realised, surprise and fear. Not fear of any vengeance Severus Snape might exact for past impositions, whatever Snape might suppose, but fear of failure. Firmly she pushed at him the image of Snape's hands taking up one book after another, turning pages slowly, and a Dictaquill hovering over a parchment, taking his notes. It was as if Lucius breathed out slowly and closed his eyes to recover his equanimity.

Belatedly Hermione recognised that the nature of their communication had changed again, under this stress: she was sensing his emotions, not just reading the images he chose to direct to her mind.

That might be more of a handicap than a help. For all his careful self-control, Lucius must be suffering an exhausting variety of feelings. What else had he to do, after all, beyond think and feel? She thought she didn't want to share the anxieties of a wizard as experienced in danger and difficulty as Lucius Malfoy.

When he calmed again and his attention returned to her, she offered him something new to consider. She had tinkered with her date and time digital clock image, and contrived to animate it. Now she pushed the animation at him. She hoped to provide him with an awareness of time passing that was not subjective, and was always available to him: setting up a slow metronome that measured the hours and the days, identifying them day in, day out. She would have to check the animation at intervals, because it would be her mind maintaining it, rather than his, until she was sure it was operating reliably in a small corner of the minds of each of them, but Lucius saw its possibilities at once, and was definitely cheered by them.

She thought she had given Lucius enough to think about and deal with, so she brought up their accepted "Close of transmission" signal, the waning torch. He returned it to her, so he had no urgent questions, for now.

Hermione went off to study her manuscript.

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈

It was early July before Professor Snape came to her with some solid results from his researches.

Ending Stasis would be a very slow process. A series of complex spells had to be performed over time. They would restore Lucius to the physical world piecemeal, rather than instantly. His brain was active now, though he had been in a kind of coma for quite a time; his body would gradually become reconnected to the physical world.

Hermione found it hard to think that it was Lucius's retained soul that was communicating with her, and was both shocked and amused to discover that she was, or had been, an agnostic of sorts, even though this series of events seemed to prove the existence of a soul or soul-equivalent. Which, really, wizards already knew about, and had proof of, in the existence and abilities of Dementors. And Vampires.

Snape told her there was a definite sequence which restoration would follow, though his research had not yet identified all the elements of the rituals. It started with touch, then smell, taste, hearing, vision, progressed through movement, and ended with speech. Then the whole man would be restored, and Stasis completely reversed.

Hermione's Muggle knowledge of science was horrified by the idea of Lucius's body regaining, for example, the ability to see, to move his eyes, even to weep, without either blood circulation or breath having been restored.

She told Professor Snape that she kept visualising the failure of the body that ought to result if the body was coming out of Stasis one faculty at a time. How would Lucius be able to move a hand without blood circulation?

"No way will Lucius be exposed to taste until after I'm sure his body can cope with digestion and excretion as well as mere swallowing. All that, surely, is movement, so how can taste operate?"

"Magic," Snape said patiently, not for the first time.

Hermione had no problem with the concept of recovering consciousness and physical ability; it was doing it without lung and heart and bloodstream action that frightened her, just to list the most obvious processes. The physical body was a complex system, with few redundancies, as even her beginning Healer studies showed, let alone her grasp of Muggle physiology acquired in summer vacations. How to prevent failure there? When would the major organs restart? What happened if their restart was not synchronised?

Snape went to some trouble to help her accept that magic would sustain Lucius until his body was fully restored to life by the performance of the full sequence of spells, since saying "Magic," didn't help at all.

What convinced her in the end was being shown (though not invited to read) his accumulation of helpful books, not just the ancient collection of rituals. If a series of wizards had devoted so much time and effort to it, it must work, even if it had been completely forgotten in wizarding Britain.

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈

  


  
**Touch**

 _ritual date Wednesday 28 July 1999_

At last they were ready.

The spells in the ritual had to be performed at ten-day intervals, starting from the full moon, but the time of day was immaterial, so Snape and Hermione had arranged to perform them at eight at night. That gave them privacy at Hogwarts, some time to prepare, after Hermione's studies and his classes when school resumed, and gave Hermione the chance to wind down afterwards and still get a decent night's sleep. They would also meet early in the same day to check over the final details of that night's particular spell, which Hermione would have been studying for days beforehand.

The first ritual at the end of July was exhausting, not least because Hermione had had to learn the spells she would recite, and the accompanying actions and movements, by heart. She couldn't read that ancient book the Malfoys had somehow fallen heir to, and Snape kept stumbling when he tried to translate it. In the end he had recited the spells for her, in whatever forgotten language this was, and she had put the memory of his doing so in a Pensieve so that she could work to commit them to memory without his having to sit there repeating them for her.

On the night of the first ritual she and Snape, both dressed in clean robes, went down to his private laboratory, as that was the largest space available to him. Between them they traced patterns on the stone floor, first in chalk and then in hot wax from pure beeswax candles. Other patterns were laid down in carefully-dribbled seawater, and then in black volcanic sand. Where some pattern lines intersected, they drew ancient symbols as the books dictated, and set more candles in specially-procured candlesticks at other points.

Snape had found a small gold cauldron of the sort required at Malfoy Manor, but he had had to go to Paris for some of the exotic powders they would burn in it. There were other implements, too: a silver knife with a handle of ivory, an ivory fan to dry the sea-water, and a tiny gold-handled broom of oryx hair to symbolically sweep the patterns away afterwards.

When it was all ready Snape mixed the powders in the cauldron and elevated it to the centre of their complex of almost invisible lines, positioning it at her waist height so she as well as he could see inside it. They stood together before it, wands at the ready, until the preset charm softly chimed the hour. Together they recited the opening words of the ritual, identifying Lucius, Snape had said, their desire to bring him out of Stasis, and their commitment to follow the ritual to the end. Then Snape used the words and the wand movements to set the contents of the cauldron alight. There was a flash, but nothing burned.

His free hand gripped her shoulder as she looked at him in near panic, and he whispered, "You."

As calmly as she could Hermione repeated words and gestures, and this time the spark grew to a miniature fire of mixed colours, in which violet predominated.

His hand patted her shoulder reassuringly, and he gestured to her to continue, stepping back to watch her, though not crossing any of the lines of the patterns that contained the magic they were invoking.

She hadn't expected to have to carry out the entire ritual alone, but it was all clear in her mind, so she went on, hearing her voice rolling strangely, echoing off the stone walls, and seeing the fire blaze up at several points as she completed a particular invocation. When she made the last gesture, and lowered her wand, the fire blazed up a final time and then went out.

Done, at last, and done well, she was sure. Or almost sure. She swayed, her vision too wavering in the release from long tension. Snape came quickly to her side and supported her for the minute she needed to recover her physical and mental balance.

"Very well done, Hermione," he said softly.

Was that the first time he had used her name? Was it the intimacy of the long ritual, or even a requirement of it?

"Thank you, Severus," she responded, her voice as low. "You think it worked, then?"

"The signs are as Medraut described them."

She let herself sigh, then, and relax.

"We have to undo everything, now; restore balance to the room. These magical boundaries need to be erased, these signifiers made inert once more. In reverse order."

"So, the cauldron first."

"Yes. You cleanse it with the fire of a simple _Incendio_ , then you bring it out from the centre."

Hermione did that, then drifted it gently to its resting place on one of the side workbenches.

Together they extinguished the candles and removed the sand and water and wax, using the knife to cut the lines, and the soft broom to sweep the magical confines away. There was no sign of their original guiding chalk marks to be seen, though Hermione could see small black marks, like scorch marks, at every point where lines had intersected. Snape didn't seem to think they could be cleared. So his workroom was perhaps forever marked by the ritual for ending Stasis.

"Go home and sleep," he directed. "It's late."

"Yes. Goodnight."

He conducted her upstairs to his rooms and his Floo, and she returned thankfully home. By this time Hermione had become very used to the physical presence of Lucius on the other bed in her single bedroom. She had taken to sitting on the side of his bed, sometimes, when they were talking, and touching his hand, to remind herself that he was more than a sharp and vulnerable mental presence.

She was very tired when she returned, after midnight, and did not tell Lucius that Snape and she had started the ritual to restore him. Time enough to tell him what they planned, never mind what they did, when she saw evidence of its working. She just showed him an image of _The Book of Small Changes_ and then of Malfoy Manor library, which by now Snape had taken her to and Draco made her free of. That much, at least, the son of the house could do.

Lucius didn't recognise the massive book, of course, but he certainly received the message that Snape had found something useful in his house. He also managed to convey to her wry thankfulness that, for all the Aurors had tried to strip away anything of interest, many books and magical devices remained. Hermione was reminded of Snape's contention that the Grimmauld Place library books could hide from someone intent on disposing of them, even if he was the owner, as Sirius had been. A protective charm installed by some prudent ancestor, perhaps, and possibly renewed by descendants better informed than Sirius, who had been cast out by his family before he reached adulthood.

Hermione managed to sleep well, and woke to see Crookshanks tucked alongside Lucius in the bed opposite, purring rustily, and occasionally nosing at his hand. It was fortunate that he had never objected to Lucius. There had certainly been times when he had objected, forcefully, to Ron, when they were still sleeping together at Grimmauld Place in the few weeks between the Battle and her return to Hogwarts. But then, Ron had never fully got over his resentment of Crookshanks, when he thought Hermione's part-kneazle was wantonly trying to kill his harmless pet. She reflected sleepily that Ron could certainly carry a grudge. Ah well, that wasn't really her problem any more; some other woman would have to worry about it, perhaps when he had grown up. Harry had managed to learn to shed grudges, going by his present conduct towards Snape, so Ron should be able to do so eventually.

She firmly repressed the slight sadness that she was alone again, as she had so often been as a child, and before Harry and Ron had become her friends. Trying to be lovers, despite her previous years of infatuation, had done something final to her friendship with Ron, it seemed; and Ginny was certainly bent on limiting her friendly contacts with Harry. How odd, to think that the people she now saw most of, talked most with, had most interests in common with, were her formerly disliked if respected teacher, and the man who had at different times tried to destroy Ginny, Harry and herself, even if he hadn't been responsible for the damage Bellatrix had inflicted on her mind in his name.

She really should get over that. She suspected Lucius needed to get over it too, though possibly all he was aware of was that his sister-in-law had tortured her in his home, and he, despite his alienation from Voldemort, had done nothing to try to prevent or ameliorate it. He had had a clever tongue, still, even if he had been deprived of a wand (and she was not sure she believed that, even if he wouldn't have been able to betray the fact that he had contrived to re-arm himself in secret). At that time, though, all his attention had been on keeping his wife and son alive, and himself too, but his priorities had been clear. What difference would the fate of one Muggleborn have made to him? – unless, of course, Voldemort were to lose the war, which Lucius must have been hoping for quite as fervently as he had hoped his family would live.

She wondered when she would have evidence that Lucius had had touch restored. She could hardly ask him direct, unless she was willing to tell him about Ending Stasis, and she didn't want to tell him until she had evidence that it was working. A fine spiral of frustration.

She had work to do at St Mungo's; it was time to get ready for the day. As if to emphasise that, when she went through the living room on her way to her tiny bathroom, Tiko was in the kitchen, standing on a stool, assembling the breakfast she preferred. At least she had managed to get him to stop preparing every possible thing; she didn't want to have to renew her kitchen supplies every other day. After breakfast she had a quick exchange with a somewhat distracted Lucius, who seemed reluctant to spare attention to communicating, then put on her apprentice robes and Apparated to the hospital.

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈


	2. Part 2

**Smell and Taste**

 _ritual dates Saturday 7 August 1999; Tuesday 17 August 1999_

At first Hermione had thought the ten days' wait in between steps in the Ending Stasis ritual would be irritating. In preparing for the second ritual, to restore Lucius's sense of smell, she discovered that she needed all that time, to get the spells by heart, to rehearse the ritual with Professor Snape, and still to keep contact with Lucius, though she was too tired each night to make their sessions long or complex. She told him, in partial truth, that between her studies at St Mungo's and preparing for her classes at University College in physics and chemistry and biology, she was run off her feet. It was already obvious to her that, thanks to the demands of the rituals, which would continue until late September, she would not be as thoroughly prepared for classes as she would like.

She remained unsure whether Lucius had regained touch, since he volunteered nothing about it, and did not find out immediately after the casting of the second spell that he had regained his sense of smell.

One night she was sad, for herself as well as for Lucius, and lonely, and was having trouble going to sleep. She decided to see if giving herself an orgasm would do something about the last problem, at least. When it was over she became aware that Lucius had been – something between spectator and participant. This might have been profoundly embarrassing, but was no longer possible for her with him; she was too used to his mind impinging on hers.

So when she sensed the feelings he was radiating, which included warm approval as well as pleasure, instead of retreating into a foetal curl of embarrassment she went over to lie beside him instead. She would like to curl up beside someone, and perhaps he would like to feel another warm body too. He had touch back, after all, however long he had made her wait to have that confirmed. She lay beside him, and after a while turned to rest her head on his shoulder, putting her hand on his other shoulder. She felt not only the warmth of his body (and was puzzled yet again how it could be warm without any life processes going on – hibernating animals' bodily temperature dropped noticeably; why had not his?), but also the warmth of his mental pleasure. Yes, he did want closeness and physical contact.

The next time Lucius sensed a similar sadness in her, he projected a fuzzy picture of her lying beside him, cuddled up to him, pleasuring herself. Hermione was a little shocked, not at his forwardness, but at hers, in wishing to do as he suggested. Then she thought, why not, she was his sole contact with humanity, with feeling of any kind. If she was going to give herself an orgasm anyway, it would be much less lonely if she was doing it pressed up against him, receiving his pleasure and approval. She didn't wonder whether the rituals she was going through for him were encouraging her into such intimacy. It took a long time, but not because a climax was difficult to reach. Hermione felt herself swaying ecstatically on the brink, her pleasure prolonged by contact with Lucius, before at last she fell, and fell further, almost at once, into the warm darkness of sleep.

In the morning she woke and lifted herself away from him, and as she did so felt his regret and a sense of losing an exquisitely pleasing complex of aromas. Now she was embarrassed, briefly, by realising that Lucius had been relishing not only the scent of her body, but also the scent of her pleasure. Embarrassment was overtaken by the astonished realisation that she had proof that the spells were working: Lucius had clearly had the sense of smell restored to him as well as touch.

She was excited enough to want to share her pleasure and satisfaction at this recovery, and Lucius was clearly very happy with it too, but he taxed her with being secretive. He pointed out, in a somewhat snarky sequence of images, that she and Snape must have been doing a lot more than reading.

She sent him a quick series of pictures: Snape with their guide books, setting them open on his workbench for reference, and the two of them preparing to enact a ritual, then of herself gesturing with her wand, lips moving, clearly doing magic. Lucius wanted more information, nagging her with a set of very active question marks.

She wished he could see her roll her eyes at him in exasperation, and sent him an image of a book with its pages ruffling quickly, then another book, then another, and images of their special implements. Then she pointedly showed him an old-fashioned clock, with its hands whirring rapidly around the dial, to indicate hours passing, and at last an aggressively coloured "Stop" sign, bouncing in much the same manner as his question marks. He wasn't pleased at being denied information, but he got the message that it was complex, and would take time she didn't have to explain it to him without words.

A few nights later, after the third spell had been performed, to restore his sense of taste, Hermione consciously undertook an experiment: she got into bed with him, and lying half over him touched herself again, until she climaxed. Then she deliberately put two of her fingers into his mouth, which she opened gently, and brushed them over his tongue. Lucius's awareness of what she was doing had already had the sense of physical closeness, and a deep satisfaction at being able to scent her and the changes in her. When she touched his tongue it was as if a flash of lightning illuminated a room that before had only moonlight falling through the window onto a part of the floor. Involuntarily she withdrew her hand, but at his instant disappointment, at his sense of deprivation, she restored it, and ultimately went to sleep with one finger still in his mouth.

This was the first time she had what she regarded as concrete evidence of the piecemeal restoration of Lucius's senses, but she wondered in some dismay how she was going to tell Severus Snape. Could she really bring herself to tell him that she deliberately pressed her body against a helpless man, masturbated, and then put her still damp fingers in his mouth for him to taste? Eventually she decided that Snape could whistle for that piece of information, though she would have to tell him something. He had been very patient, and she owed him the report of their success.

The fourth spell, for hearing, was due to be performed in a few days; she would see what happened after that, if anything. Lucius had shown no sign of being aware of her voice (unless she was projecting feelings or images at him at the same time). Neither could he hear music played in the flat, or the slight traffic noise from outside, or Crookshanks's purrs, though for some time he had expressed appreciation of the cat's willingness to curl up against his hip in lieu of on his mistress's lap; he did feel those vibrations.

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈

**Hearing**

 _ritual date Friday 27 August 1999_

On the morning of the day of the spell for hearing Hermione found she had run out of Floo powder. She cursed herself for trying to fit so much work into too little time that she forgot such a simple need, and Apparated to the boundaries of Hogwarts very early, just after dawn, for their rehearsal. She took a broomstick from the shed where spare brooms were kept for visitors in too much of a hurry to walk up to the school, and rode up to the entrance hall steps, left the broom in the erumpent-foot broomstand, and started walking quickly through halls and passages and down stairs to reach the Defence Master's private potions laboratory, where they performed the rituals. She met few people; but the portraits and the ghosts knew she was authorised to be there.

Today she exchanged a quick nod with Professor Sprout, and a greeting with Nearly Headless Nick, who still disapproved of her going down to the Slytherin dungeons and, as usual, tried first to dissuade her and then to accompany her. She ignored the first and relied on Nick's sense of self-preservation to put an end to the second. The last time he had tried to go down to the dungeons with her the Bloody Baron had chased him off, before he came back to sneer silently at her. Hermione had not enjoyed that, but Snape had promised to speak to him, and though she found the Baron waiting at the head of the steps (whereupon Nick fled), he did no worse than grin sardonically at her.

Today she and Snape spent nearly two hours going over the spell. When they finished it was time for him to go down to the Hall for breakfast at the professors' table, but instead of bidding her a brisk goodbye and sweeping off, bat robes billowing, Snape seemed to be hesitating over something. His expression was unusually curdled, as well.

Finally she asked, "What's the problem?"

"I thought I should ask you to check your sources for the ritual with me, to ensure all goes well. Just for my own peace of mind, if you don't need to be reassured yourself, before tonight, when it will be too late to remedy any errors."

When Hermione just stared at him, he was not a happy man. His explanation was therefore possibly blunter than it might otherwise have been.

He said starkly, "I need to be sure you're getting the sex right. Neither of us, I assume, wants to waste all this effort –"

She practically screamed at him, "What sex?"

Feebly, for him, Snape protested. "You must have known! By your report Lucius not only has his sense of touch back – which could be expected seeing how much care and attention you've been giving him – but also smell and taste."

A horrible interval of mutual discovery of ignorance ensued.

Hermione's source from the Grimmauld Place library, such as it was, had only hinted at additional elements in the ritual to back up the spells, and she had been relying entirely on him to explain whatever was needed.

Snape had held off explaining about the sex until she was too deep in the ritual process to back out, then assumed, when she reported the first three spells had been successful, that she had discovered for herself what was required and was vindictively not telling him she had done so.

Baldly Snape said, "Each spell needs the spell caster to perform a particular sexual act with Lucius before the next spell is undertaken."

Hermione ignored her scarlet cheeks and her mortification and snarled, "So I got touch and smell and taste right without any help; what's next for hearing, that you're in such a sweat?"

"No, the question is, did you get it right for taste? You only have a few hours to fix things if you didn't."

They shouted at each other very briefly, before Hermione demanded stonily, "What's taste, then?"

Snape eyed her warily before he muttered, "Masturbating him – by hand. Then for hearing you have to suck him off."

Considering that that was an element, admittedly minor, in the occasional nightmares of rape which her sleeping mind produced, translating Lucius's acceptance of Bellatrix's tortures into an active participation in them, Hermione took this quite well.

After a frozen pause she demanded, "To climax?"

"Of course, and I imagine for each spell from now on."

Snape looked warier than ever before he said, "I assume you did all that for Mr Weasley sometimes? We were sure you were having sex with him before the end of sixth year, but Dumbledore said to let you alone."

Hermione said savagely, "I love having my private life laid out for everyone to pick over!" She added, "Yes."

About to ask Snape just how bad things were going to get, Hermione was diverted by an appalling thought: how did Snape expect her to get a complex physiological reaction from a man whose body was in Stasis?

Since she asked him with explicit Muggle medical terms he just blinked at her, before he understood what she was asking, and reassured her, "You'll find Lucius's body in good working order, I'm sure."

Under his breath he added, "When was it ever not, the bastard?"

That was a sentiment she could sympathise with, though she didn't plan to ask Snape why he should be aware of it, or resent it.

She said despairingly, "Merlin help me, Snape, if his blood isn't circulating how is he going to get an erection? That's created entirely by –"

"The magic will see to that."

"These spells we're doing?"

"You're doing."

Hermione realised belatedly that Snape had taken great care _he_ should not be obliged to have sex with Lucius Malfoy, but before she could berate him too thoroughly he interrupted, almost placating, "Yes, I did, Miss Granger, but I know more now."

Finally he yelled over her angry reproaches, " _He has to have sex with a woman_!"

In the silence that followed, when both were hoping no one heard them, Snape added, "You know the first ritual showed you were the one who had to do the remaining spells in the sequence. The wizards who created this ritual were very old-fashioned, more like Muggles, I suppose because they lived closer to them. The magic must be done by a woman, for a man. And vice versa. I've learned a lot since we did the first spell. That spell-book is incredibly secretive, and the commentaries are almost worse."

Hermione pulled herself together and said flatly, "I suppose I'd better go home and get it done, then. Is there anything else you haven't told me?"

"Much, but nothing you need to know about before tonight's ritual."

"When that's done, Professor Snape, you are going to tell me all about everything, and produce your sources, and prove you've explained the _whole_ of the ritual." While Hermione was sure he noticed she was using his title again, not just his surname, her tone was cool.

"You read ancient Aramaic, then?"

She snarled, "I can see I need to learn. I'm going to have a word, later, with Professor Flitwick about Language Charms."

"Be careful," Snape said, sounding quite anxious; "they give shocking headaches. You can't afford it till this is done with."

Hermione stormed back to her broomstick, aware that that expression of concern might have been a clumsy apology, but not caring to stay with him long enough to accompany him up four flights of stairs to his Floo. She was irritated enough to march straight through the Bloody Baron. Snape was going to miss breakfast, and she was glad.

Before she reached the Hogwarts boundary, however, a question of definition occurred to her. She swung her broom in a wide circle and returned to the school. It was too late to catch Snape before his first class, so she waited outside the Defence classroom, aware this would be a double class, as all his advanced classes were. She rehearsed in her head all she had done with Ron, fighting her own revulsion at the thought of doing it with Lucius Malfoy. Whatever it was, she had to do it right. She might owe him nothing, though she felt rather differently towards him nowadays, but she had undertaken this task for Draco, and out of a general sense of justice, and seemed now to be doing it for Lucius's own sake. She would follow it to the end, however bitter. She conjured up a chair, took a physics textbook out of her pocket, and settled down to pass the rest of the double period in study.

When the children came out in a relieved or downcast rush (Gryffindors and Slytherins, she noticed, scowling austerely at the latter), she slipped into the classroom and said rapidly, "You need to answer some questions."

"You're still here?"

She hissed very softly, "What exactly does your source mean by 'suck him off'? I bet that's not what it says. I want an exact translation, _now_ , Snape!"

Snape must have noticed she was back to his surname again. He hesitated, then said, "It's a fair question, Miss Granger. I should have been more explicit."

He glanced at the still open door, and used his wand to leave a message on the blackboard for his next class, containing instructions and a very explicit threat.

"This is one of the problems of embarking on sex magic with a fellow magic-user who is not only female but a recent student," he said softly, but not at all apologetically, as he led her swiftly downstairs to his private laboratory. "A reflex propriety has perhaps caused me to be less than communicative."

When Hermione did reach the school gates she had given up all expectation of a normal day. Some of today's classes and duties at St Mungo's were already in the past, and completing the ritual with Lucius was far more important than any reproof for absence. At least her normal devotion to study should protect her from anything worse than a reproof. And some time soon she needed to buy Floo powder.

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈

Hermione was not concerned about having to bring Lucius to climax using her hands (provided his body cooperated); it was just another mildly distasteful task. She did very much dislike the idea of fellating him, and taking him to climax with her mouth, but tried to tell herself that it should be simple enough, as she would be firmly in control.

On reflection, this could have been a great deal worse: Lucius might have been in charge. It was not as if he would be able to move, or seize hold of her and force her to do as he wished, rather than as she intended. She was not looking forward to finding out from Snape tonight what else she was committed to. While she waited for him that morning her mind had insisted on running through all sorts of permutations and combinations, despite the physics textbook, and she had not liked any of them.

She returned to her flat not long before noon, and curtly instructed Tiko to strip Master Lucius and wash him thoroughly, especially his private parts, and then to disappear and not return to the bedroom until she called him. She took herself into the shower as she heard the snap of Tiko summoning warm water and towels.

By the time she emerged from a lengthy shower she had faced the necessity of telling Lucius what she was going to do. But should she tell him about the ritual of spells and sex, or just let him think she had decided to give him sexual pleasure as well as mental contact and an appreciation of her own pleasure? He would think it peculiar in the extreme.

She had not wanted to tell him the details of what she and Snape were doing, at least until she saw a strong likelihood of success. Indeed, she doubted that their communication skills could cover it. She could spell it out letter by letter, like a mental ouija board, she supposed, but the simplest method might be to juxtapose the image of Snape in his laboratory with two others: one of her having sexual contact with Lucius, the other of her and Snape together conducting a ritual. And how would Lucius interpret that? Not today, she decided.

So when she joined Lucius on his bed, and sat tucked in beside his narrow hips as always, sitting on the sheet that Tiko had drawn up to his waist, she looked down at him thoughtfully. She sent him a brief image of herself as she had been a few days ago, half-lying over him, touching herself, and his pleasure at receiving her sensations as well as some sensory input. She followed that up with another image, of herself leaning over him, touching him. His immediate response was eagerness, followed by surprise. No suspicion, she was grateful to note. But then even the professionally and rightfully paranoid Lucius Malfoy had had time to get used to the idea that if she wanted to harm or hurt him she could have done so long ago.

Despite what Severus Snape had said about Lucius always being "in working order", Hermione had decided that for herself as much as for him she was going to lead into this slowly. She used her wand to remove the nightshirt Tiko had replaced, and put her hands on him, one at his waist and the other on his chest, gently spreading her fingers wide and slowly exploring the textures of his skin.

As she did so she looked at his body, perhaps seeing it as it was for the first time, and had to admit that he was, indeed, beautiful. She admired the fine, pale skin, the enticingly male breadth of bone and swell of muscle in shoulders and chest and arms, the light floss of pale blond hair between his nipples and running in a narrow line down his breastbone to disappear under the sheet, which appealed to her as being male without being gross. What a pity that those slim, long-fingered hands with their filbert fingernails could not touch her as she was touching him!

And where had that thought come from? It was too verbal to be his. Well. Maybe this would not be so distasteful a task after all. How many women got their hands on Lucius Malfoy to do as they would without penalty? Hermione grinned mischievously. Maybe she would tease him till he was frantic for release. That would serve him right; she would bet heavily it was something he was good at. She would enjoy it; and she suspected he would too. With any luck it would shock him right down to his toes.

She took her time, stroking, pressing, lightly scratching, before she took hold of his hands and moved them up to lie beside his shoulders, cupped open, palm upward, out of her way.

In mercy as much as because she wanted to, she went on to scoop the long fair hair from under his shoulders, finger-combing it out of its loose plaits. She played with it for a little while, using it to stroke his mouth and throat and then his pale browny-pink nipples, before she coiled it out of her way beside his head.

Only then did Hermione move the sheet down to the foot of the bed, to expose the whole of his body. Her eyes skipped hastily past the thick cock that lay flaccid in its nest of silky fleece, though she lingered over the long, strong thighs, and took her time considering knees, calves, and feet, before she thought with mild indignation that even his knees and ankles were elegantly turned. So very unfair! She lifted the leg nearest her with a hand under his knee, to examine more closely the articulation of the bones. She sighed, and stroked his knee, then ran her hand slowly down the top of his calf to the high arch of his foot, finishing by cradling his instep and brushing a thumb over his toes.

Just too beautiful. What a pity he had the mind of a rabid pit viper along with his Veela appetite for sex and his Vampire lack of heart and soul. Though after what had happened in his meeting with the unleashed Dementor she could hardly, she reflected, call him soulless. He quite literally had a soul, and was lucky that weird turn of magic, or inherited Vampire ability, had enabled him to keep it. He also, demonstrably, loved his family, of which only his son remained to him, even if his pureblood ambition and lust for power were almost unchanged by Voldemort's defeat, and were trumped only by that love. Strange man.

However unexpectedly pleasant, playing with his body was not going to get this ritual competed. She moved his thighs apart and knelt between them. She had thought of straddling them, but she might need to do that another day.

She looked down at his genitals and again found her Muggle upbringing and understanding of science handicapping rather than helping her. It was totally weird that the body she had been touching, admiring, caressing, was quite unmoving, unstirred by blood or breath. Weird that she could see the delicate blue tracery of veins, especially on his chest and the exposed tender underside of his forearms, could feel, if she chose, the major arteries at the groin and in the throat, and know that the blood in them had not moved for five months. Yet he was alive and, Snape kept assuring her, able to be fully restored.

Hermione had been concentrating so hard on visual and textural appreciation, that she had been ignoring the sense of Lucius that always rested quietly at the back of her mind. Now she was not so intensely focussed on his body, she had a glimpse of his mind again, and found it suspended between mild pleasure and a rather stronger apprehension. Maybe he had caught her desire to tease him. Not, perhaps, a kind thing to do to a highly sexed man who had been deprived of physical stimulus of almost any kind for five months. A vindictive part of her thought not only, _Sauce for the goose_ , but also, _He's lucky I don't want to torture him till his mind whites out, then do it again, and again._ The apprehension spiked abruptly; obviously he had caught the feeling behind that, too, if not the words.

A mild remorse, and the recollection that those phantom rapes had been Bellatrix's, not his, impelled Hermione to lean over him and finger his nipples gently, then slide her hands up his chest till she could support herself on his shoulders, and lower her mouth to his. Bellatrix had not forced any kisses on her, so this should be untainted pleasure, and perhaps he would like it, even if he did not want it. Her mouth brushed over his, before her lips firmed and clasped his lower lip between them, sucking it in, relishing its astonishing tenderness, then her tongue opened his lips and moved aggressively into his mouth, exploring. She lingered there longer than she had meant; he tasted fresh, like sweet grass and country air on a frosty morning, and there was nothing to obscure the taste of him. It was, however, very odd kissing someone who could neither respond to her nor reject her; slowly she withdrew from his mouth. Later, perhaps.

This time she had carefully maintained the sense of his mind in hers, and felt him gradually relax into receptivity, and even into cautious enjoyment. She wondered how dependent his body was on his mind. Would he need to feel safe with her, to trust her to want only pleasure, before he could respond? While she liked the idea of playing with him, of controlling him, she was not anxious to need to spend a very long time over it in order to demolish his fears.

Perhaps a little reassurance was in order. She slid back again, then bent her head so that she could touch her tongue to the head of his cock, licking it, first with a pointed tip, then with a broader swirl round the whole head, and felt his instant response. It struck her again, forcefully, how strange it was that his response to this stimulus should be entirely mental. Yet… she lifted her head. Ah. Not entirely mental. How satisfactory. It seemed that Snape had been quite right; Stasis was not going to be an impediment.

She reminded herself that she was supposed to be using her hands for this, not her mouth. Stupid of her, perhaps, to have begun with the stronger stimulus. She wrapped one hand firmly round him at the base, though she could not enclose him fully, and used a fingertip of the other to trace very gently over the head of his cock, to tease the slit there, to run around the corona, and then to run firmly up the underside, from base to tip. Ah yes, definitely in working order. Yet the great vein was not pulsing with blood, though the cockhead was flushing, now. That was too weird; she wouldn't think about it.

And at the back of her mind his attention was firmly on what she was doing; thought was suspended in favour of sensation. Odd to be able to tell the difference, but fairly precise images had now been replaced by shifting sheets of flexible colour, like an aurora borealis, and a sense of warmth. She wondered, briefly, if they would retain this method of communication after he was restored to himself, and chided herself for irrelevancy. Concentrate, Hermione.

She withdrew her attention from the surprising pleasure of handling him and getting such positive responses, and concentrated on coaxing him, first to full erection and then to climax. Her own impulse was to be gentler than she knew a man preferred, and she suppressed it in favour of what would please him, leading him on without rush. She lingered over the rising excitement, controlling it for a while, until the pearly drops appeared and he would, if he were anything like Ron, be ready to scream and beg, wanting both to finish this and to prolong it.

She began to pay closer attention to the sense of him in her mind, and was surprised at the chaotic and yet rhythmic washes of bright delicate colours with an under-layer of sheet lightning. Yes, perhaps she had pushed him quite far enough, and it was time to let him have the climax she had been teasing him with for what, she suddenly realised, was a longer time than she had intended.

It was quick, and hard, when it came, and nearly whited out her mind as well as his. She was astounded at the power of it, and went completely still, clasping him, unnerved by the complete lack of response in him except from his cock and the tight balls below it which tightened even further, then slowly relaxed, even as that ceased its frantic movements. Her hands and his belly were spattered with his come, and once more she shook her head in Muggle incomprehension of the workings of magic on physiology, as she stroked the last of it out of him and then released him, and watched him sink back into quiescence.

She stayed beside him till she could feel his mind, also, settle into steadiness and ease, then leaned forward and kissed his mouth. As an afterthought she put her fingers into his mouth as she had done a few days ago, this time to let him taste himself on her, and received very strongly his appreciation and approval of that. Then she detached herself from him physically, while retaining a gentle contact between their minds, and called Tiko to clean him up and make sure he was warm and comfortable, while she had her third shower of the day before getting ready to return to Hogwarts. Snape had better not want a detailed report; she would kill him.

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈

When she joined him Snape merely asked, "Success?"

"Yes."

His relief was evident as he explained, "Once we'd performed the ritual for taste he received it, but on credit, as it were, until you completed the ritual."

"And if I hadn't done so?"

He grimaced. "The ritual would have been broken. We might have been able to start again. More likely we would have had to carry out the rest of it, and then start again – and I'm sure you'll think once is enough. It's also possible that he would never have been able to retrieve that sense."

Hermione said, mildly enough, "Don't keep me in the dark again. It was utterly reckless of you."

"Yes," he admitted. "But you have to realise, Miss Granger, that I still don't know everything. Don't look so alarmed – the commentaries reveal details of what's required in time."

"Those ancient wizards were sadists. I don't see why that's necessary."

"Maybe to discourage people from performing the ritual except in deeply felt need. And perhaps to ensure that the spell-caster is committed enough to undertake the ritual blindly, without knowing all that is required. Once, you remember, the punishment for unforgivable crime wasn't the Dementor's Kiss, it was condemnation to Stasis. Trying to overturn that was a serious undertaking."

Hermione shuddered. "And I thought current wizarding attitudes to crime and punishment were barbaric! That's truly disgusting."

"You think Muggle ways are better?"

"It's better to kill quickly and cleanly, if a criminal has done something unforgivable, though you know that Muggles nowadays usually imprison the body to protect society, while still giving the criminal a chance to reform – they know nothing of stripping away the soul. _Nothing_ excuses condemning a person to live without a soul, but at least they're not conscious of their existence, as a person in Stasis is. Do you know how quickly someone goes mad, if completely deprived of sensory awareness?"

"I imagine it might be quite fast," Snape agreed, "but what makes you think a being stripped of its soul is not conscious of what has happened to it, and of the nature of its existence?"

"I don't want to talk about this any more," Hermione said between her teeth. "I can't afford to start throwing up now."

In a lecturing tone Snape said, "That's how you can tell Vampires are a relatively modern creation."

Hermione stared, and realised that in his weird way he was trying to be kind, distracting her with intellectual curiosity.

"Why?" she asked meekly.

"Because they can protect themselves from the Dementor's Kiss – they can cache their souls safely away from the body. Surely Muggles have legends about this? Even if they passed me by?"

Hermione remembered being taken to see the ballet _The Firebird_ , and rather sympathising with the immortal wizard Koschei, whose soul was hidden somewhere – in an egg? a stone? a tree? – only to be discovered by that wimpy Prince, who needed a bird to help him.

Dutifully she responded, "Yes."

Snape nodded. "Of course. Some asocial Vampires prey on them, after all; they'd seek some defences, some knowledge."

She didn't break it to him that the Muggle concept of Vampires was very different from his. He must have had a very restricted childhood, if he had no idea of what Muggles thought of Vampires.

"I did tell you Lucius is part Vampire – not much, but enough that quite involuntarily he did what his heritage enabled him to do: put his soul somewhere safe.

"Unfortunately –" he continued his lecture, "– he hadn't the training to retrieve it, or to defend himself when the more ancient punishment cut in: he was trapped in Stasis. Potter eventually dragged him back to consciousness – and you're quite right, if no more had been done Lucius would indeed have gone mad. _You_ gave him a link to reality, to sensation, to objectivity –"

Hermione interrupted, "Let's not get into philosophy, Professor Snape. I don't think either of us is equipped to discuss it usefully."

Snape looked remotely regretful, but nodded briskly. It was time to prepare for the ritual, after all.

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈

When Hermione had performed the spell for hearing she and her guide were both exhausted, but after a short rest they both rose and began carefully erasing lines and marks and sigils, with due care for appropriate order, dismantling in reverse order to the way they had built. Snape put away the candles, and the ancient vessels that had cost him much trouble to procure, while Hermione carefully stored the remains of the powders and other substances she had burned in the tiny golden cauldron. At last they were done, and Snape applied a major cleansing spell to the whole room to ensure that no residue could affect later ceremonies, or indeed any person who entered the room. The scorch marks remained on the stone floor, though he seemed to think they might go once the ritual series was complete.

Then Snape gathered up the books to lock them away in his most strongly warded bookcase. The large book of raggedly edged parchment sheets bound together – probably in human skin, he had suggested – contained the actual ritual and the spells. The three much smaller and even rattier books of vastly different ages were the commentaries on it. One went into broad detail, and the other two had to be used together as the ritual progressed to obtain the necessary fine detail.

"Wait! You were going to explain _everything_ to me, remember?"

"I _can't_ explain everything," Snape answered sourly, "but I suppose I'll have to demonstrate that, too. Very well, Miss Granger. Over here."

He set the books on a broad, sloping reading table and motioned to her to draw up a stool beside his. Hermione was irresistibly reminded of medieval monks in a scriptorium, working in grossly uncomfortable conditions to preserve the texts of incredibly valuable books. Wizards usually managed to make themselves comfortable, but that did not mean they did not pay in other ways for the preservation of knowledge.

"Now. _The Book of Small Changes_ – a modest lot, they might have been, or deceitful – is the big one, the first written. It contains not only the ritual we need, but many others, some of them, happily, no longer required. I don't recommend you study it even when you do learn ancient Aramaic. It responds unfavourably to mere curiosity."

He opened it to their ritual, and leafed through a dozen or so sheets of parchment, beautifully inscribed in quite unfaded ink in uncomfortably small writing in a script she did not recognise. Snape pointed out the references to the spell they had just performed, then set it aside.

He explained, "It says only, at the end of each spell, 'You will then do as you must, within the next ten days, woman to man or man to woman, as is written.' That bit about 'woman to man or man to woman' was illegible until after we performed the first spell together."

Hermione said something a respectable Muggle would have found excessively vulgar, but which merely caused Snape's eyebrows to flick in puzzlement. That surprised her; she would have thought his father had had a good vocabulary of curses, and shared them freely with wife and child. On the other hand, Snape hadn't been in the Muggle world for nearly thirty years, and the language of anger and contempt changed fast.

"Never mind," she said ruefully, thinking that this was what came of associating with boys rather than girls in both worlds. "Where do you find 'what is written'?"

"In this," he touched the fattest of the three small books. "Medraut's Commentary. Unfortunately, most of the pages are blank. When we started, only the first few pages, which relate strictly to the sense of touch, had writing on them."

She demanded instantly, "When did you learn what I have to do for hearing?"

He nodded, acknowledging her point. "Yesterday."

"Only two days' notice. I hope we don't at any point need more rare ingredients!"

"Indeed," he agreed.

"The newest book is this one," Snape picked up the smallest book, "and it summarises in a very general way the ritual, the spells, the materials, and the, er, supplementary activities. _Very_ general," he emphasised. "It's the only one I have been able to read the whole of from the beginning; it's the one I found first, which led me to the others. We had one of the Commentaries here, incidentally, Medraut's, which isn't much older. The other two books I retrieved from the Malfoy Manor library. They were among the books the Aurors didn't find – not surprising, given their importance. Lucky for Lucius; it might have taken much longer to locate them, otherwise."

"Are there other copies?"

"There are, or there were. Some have been confiscated by various authorities, Muggle as well as wizarding, over the last three thousand years since the _Book_ was written, and generally destroyed. This may not in itself be Dark magic, but it's most likely to be needed for Dark magicians.

"The overview – it's just called _Ending Stasis_ , after the ritual – seems to have been written by someone who successfully performed the ritual for her husband. It originated in Byzantium over fifteen hundred years ago, and is in classical Greek, which was of course no longer anything like the spoken or the written language. You read that, don't you?"

She nodded.

"Study it, then, later, and sympathise – with me, trying to see what it meant, and with the writer, who struggled desperately to be more explicit and was prevented by the very spells she had just completed. That made her very, very angry."

Snape looked at her thoughtfully. "You might consider, when all this is over, trying to write a further commentary. It sounds as if you don't approve of either Stasis or the Kiss as a punishment. Perhaps if there are two of us writing it we may be able to evade more of the restrictions."

"We can discuss that another time, if it seems to be a good idea, which I seriously doubt," Hermione said flatly, disapprovingly, but she flicked a finger towards _The Book of Small Changes_.

Snape's eyes widened.

"Oh, very well." He managed to sound disappointed. "Without Irene Argyra's book I think it would be impossible, nowadays, to perform the ritual; you need all three books, the prime source and the two Commentaries, Daryavoush's and Medraut's. Anyone trying to work only from the spells laid out in _The Book of Small Changes_ would find disastrous failure. Perhaps that's why so much guidance as Irene gives was permitted. Now. I can read all the spells for the rituals in the _Book_ , and they seem coherent. I _can't_ translate them into English – that is, I am not _permitted_ to. That's why I could only summarise the intent for you and you had to learn them by heart, without writing them down."

Hermione sounded impressed when she breathed, "That is a very paranoid spell-book."

"Yes. Medraut's Commentary has a lot of irrelevancies through it – most of the text is irrelevant. I suspect it may be a commentary on several other rituals as well, but Merlin knows what they are. In fact it's quite easy to see which bits relate to Ending Stasis: you can understand them. The rest is so much gibberish."

"Let me see the details for hearing, then," Hermione demanded.

Snape opened the book carefully and laid it before her, smiling sourly.

Hermione could recognise Anglo-Saxon and early medieval Welsh, but could read neither, and the Latin was both late and semi-illiterate.

"Dear me, and I called _The Book of Small Changes_ paranoid," she observed mildly. "You are quite sure you made sense of this?"

"I translated the earlier requirements successfully – though it certainly wasn't the work of an hour; I was up all night with touch, even though it's extremely simple once you understand it. I can translate much faster, now. And yes, you do need all three languages. There are a few bits in ancient runes, too, just not, as it happens, in this section. I suspect Medraut was allowed to give as much information as he did because he made it so hard to decipher."

"So if _The Book of Small Changes_ holds the actual spells, and Irene's book describes the ritual, however generally, and Medraut gives the details of both the rituals and the sex magic, what do you need Daryavoush for?"

Snape sighed. "Medraut is actually a translation of some parts of Daryavoush which can no longer be read. By anyone. Not just because his text was written in an ancient Persian script based on cuneiform, which Muggles know only from inscriptions on stone and clay. Medraut himself had enormous trouble, he claims, and he was an extremely powerful Dark wizard. He said the materials faded into illegibility as he read them. But, in order to get the relevant section of Medraut to show itself, you have to read what you can of Daryavoush _first_. Without that earlier commentary, the pages of Medraut would remain blank forever."

Hermione said dispassionately, "Lucius Malfoy is a far luckier man than he deserves, that you are willing to undertake such difficult work for him."

Snape shrugged. "The research is fascinating. I'm fond of Draco; he would be distressed if I didn't do what I could for Lucius. Lucius and I were friends, of a sort, once. A long time ago. Perhaps we may be again, being able to be honest in Voldemort's absence."

He added, " _You_ owe Lucius nothing."

Hermione too shrugged. "Draco is a friend, now. I'd like him to have a father. After all, maybe six months in absolute solitary will improve Lucius's character. Certainly at present he is both polite and patient. I must say that you make me feel I would very much like to be able to undertake research like this myself, one day. It is fascinating. And," she finished sombrely, "we have just had proved to us that the oldest knowledge may sometimes be needed, and therefore should not be lost."

She sighed. "We've wasted enough time; it must be near midnight. Show me what Irene and Medraut – and Daryavoush, if needed – have to say about hearing. Then I'd like to look at Irene to see what I can work out about the later rituals."

"Why not come back tomorrow, for that?" he suggested, pushing Irene's book towards her with careful fingers.

At the end of another hour, with an enhanced appreciation for Snape's language skills and the secretiveness of the wizards who had originated the ritual, Hermione knew what she had to look forward to some time in the next ten days. It could have been worse. She was not, apparently, required to somehow enable Lucius's Stasis-bound body to fuck her mouth and throat.

The next day it occurred to her to ask Snape in what ways the ritual differed if it was being performed for a woman. Snape said rather primly that there had been as yet no need to differentiate, and Hermione had to admit he was right.

Just think, she had a good thirty days to wait to find out every last horrid detail, and in every case at least two days to work herself up to doing whatever would be required next. Or, perhaps, to melt into a puddle of revulsion and terror. She had not intended to get into the habit of offering Lucius sex of any kind except as required by the ritual, though it was clear he would enjoy it, but there might be something to be said, after all, for getting accustomed to his body. Merlin knew what she would need to do with it, before the ritual was complete.

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈

On Hermione's first night at home after Lucius had his hearing back she found her comfortable evening, sitting with Crookshanks on her knee and studying her textbooks while listening to fifties music, rudely interrupted. She had decided recently that liking rock and roll meant she needed to go back to its earliest days, and the gospel and country music that intermingled their influences in its development. She had found plenty of CDs of that music being remaindered in Muggle record shops, though the quality of the reproduction varied enormously.

One of the first things she had done after she moved into her own flat was to ensure that her CD player from her parents' home would work, despite all the interference from magic; that had turned into an interesting research project in itself. She refrained, once she had it working, from approaching the music as if she was going to write a paper on it; random play ensured that she never knew what would come up next and made her pay closer attention.

She had just settled into enjoying _Blue Suede Shoes_ when a burst of static in her mind drew her attention to Lucius's reactions. He could hear the music perfectly well from the bedroom, and it was distressingly plain that he hated Elvis. He hadn't been too fond of the previous tracks, either, but had at least found Slim Whitman's high tenor singing _Whispering Hope_ marginally tolerable as a musical curiosity. Hermione muttered disgustedly and used the remote to lower the volume before she went into the bedroom to argue with him. She could have communicated with Lucius perfectly well from her worn armchair, but it seemed more polite to join him when she was in the flat with him.

Before the argument finished Hermione had been exposed to Malfoy arrogance full blast: Lucius was determined not to listen to any more of that _stuff_ – his imagery was both creative and untranslatable – and intent on having his taste in music catered to.

Hermione had not been frightened; she had shouted at him, first indignantly, then angrily, before she calmed herself and offered to trade. Working with Snape had toughened her considerably, she thought with satisfaction, reviewing this later. The offer brought all Lucius's Slytherin instincts to the fore; he too calmed down.

They ended with an agreement that probably satisfied Hermione more than Lucius, but she was trading from strength: she had possession of the remote. She would teach Tiko to use the CD player so that during the day Lucius could hear the kind of music he liked – she explained carefully to both of them that magic must not be used on it, and added pointedly if she did find it affected by magic she would know who to blame. In the evenings she would go right on playing fifties rock and country music, but at a lower volume. If Lucius found it too irritating he could listen to the wizarding wireless network, which she would magically confine to the bedroom.

Lucius was very rude about the music played on that network, and wanted to know why she could not do the same with her disgusting Muggle music, but she said flatly that while he was confined to bed she needed to be able to move about the flat. She was not going to put a Cone of Silence around her chair and be deprived of the music whenever she got up to do something, and since her Muggle earphones were not wireless she was not going to use those either.

He presented her with an image of a large green and silver snake not only hissing threats, but snapping and snarling, which made her laugh, before she promised to play Mozart or Haydn in the later part of the evening. Lucius seemed to enjoy almost anything written before about 1840, which led her to make a scathing attack on prejudice, which moved him not a whit. He held out for classical music in the mornings too, and Hermione agreed with false reluctance; she was not keen on raucous music first thing, but to say so to Lucius Malfoy was simply to hand him a weapon.

Lucius tried to ban Elvis, but she insisted he was going to have to get used to the "stuff", and Elvis Presley was a lot easier listening than some of the music she had every intention of playing. To make her point she played him Jerry Lee Lewis playing and singing _Good Golly Miss Molly_ , which appeared to shock Lucius rigid, not just for the sheer noise levels, and then Charlie Daniels' _The Devil Went Down to Georgia_. Merely out of the kindness of her heart, she then agreed not to listen to Jerry Lee Lewis without raising a Cone of Silence.

After that Hermione's flat was filled with music all day and all evening, and once Lucius identified a station on the wizarding wireless which broadcast pleasant late night music he started listening to that inside a Cone of Silence while Hermione slept. When she came home unexpectedly early one afternoon she smiled to recognise Slim Whitman singing _It's a Small World_ , of all things, and then to discover that the CD was not on random play. Perhaps the stubborn Lucius was sampling her despised music behind her back.

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈


	3. Part 3

**Vision**

 _ritual date Monday 6 September 1999_

Five days after completing the spell for hearing Hermione had the spell for the restoration of vision off by heart: words, actions, and movements. She decided she had better get the next part of the sex show over with, pay the debt before the due date was uncomfortably close.

Once, Lucius had tentatively indicated, with tactfully fuzzy images, that he would like it if she joined him in his bed. She had firmly said "No". That was hard to misinterpret, as she had borrowed a Muggle road sign to use for refusal: the red circle with the diagonal red slash. It was also difficult to present gently, though she tried.

Only then had she remembered that Lucius could hear her now; they still communicated frequently in images. She had said his name, and felt him respond in her mind, a sort of waiting which they both used to signify attention.

She had said carefully, "I don't want to. Please don't ask." Lucius did not again proposition her.

He was going to be very confused when she not only came back to his bed without being asked, but did something for him he could guess she disliked. Heigh ho. Was there a universe in which she was not destined to be Lucius Malfoy's whore, in some sense?

She had read Irene's _Ending Stasis_ in full by now, and had every intention of attempting to make her own copy, later; not yet, in case _The Book of Small Changes_ took offence. It was a consolation to reflect that at the end of the ritual Irene not only had her husband back; she herself was still alive and able to write her overview, and struggle fiercely with _The Book of Small Changes_ for control of what she wrote. The _Book_ had not been willing to let Irene give details of the sex magic, but Hermione was not surprised to find clear indications that the sex became more intimate, more demanding. Irene suggested that the last act of all had been very difficult. But what, Hermione asked herself, could be worse than being raped by Lucius Malfoy, several times in a row, with and without magical compulsion, even if it was only in her head?

Perhaps that had been too cavalier a thought. It was followed by a particularly severe flashback to one of the images Bellatrix had forced on her, where she found herself again lying helpless under Lucius, paralysed, but able to feel and fear everything he did to her, knowing that he was probably enjoying her pain and terror even more than his own mere physical pleasure. It would be unfair to impute such enjoyment to the real man, but it was hard to avoid feeling like that.

When she was able to pull away from memory, and finally to stop shaking, she thought, "Lucius Malfoy, you _owe_ me. If only because you married that bitch's sister. You'd better be civil when all this is done." She put the ritual off to the following evening, and eventually charmed herself to dreamless sleep.

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈

Hermione's classes ended after noon the next day, and by then she was taut with apprehension, so she returned to her flat instead of going to the library to do research for a medical school assignment as she ordinarily did. Get it over with, and resume some kind of normal life.

When she arrived she gave Tiko the same instructions as before, rejecting his offer of lunch with faint nausea. She went straight from her bathroom to the side of the blind and immobile man lying on the narrow bed that was a twin to her own, and waved the wizarding wireless off.

She hesitated at the bedside, then said as calmly as she could, "Lucius. Still interested in sex?"

His response was wary rather than eager, with the expected confusion behind it.

She hesitated, then said rapidly, calm eroding, "I am going to go down on you."

Unfortunately that only got her reinforced confusion, and she thought irately, _What_ do _wizards bloody well say_? before she remembered Snape's terminology. Lucius better understand that, or she would just get right down to it.

She muttered, "I'm going to suck you off."

Hermione was astonished to see at once the "No Entry, Go Back" sign. Lucius conveyed, as delicately as he could, his understanding that she did not want to. _Now_ he had to be a gentleman, possibly for the first time in his life?

Gritting her teeth, she said, "You don't get to choose, Lucius. Neither do I. It's going to happen, so the sooner the better."

She could feel the lowering storm clouds blowing up in his mind, but he controlled the anger almost at once. A vigorously flashing question mark appeared over the roiling nimbus image, even as the clouds towered higher.

Hermione hesitated. She did not want to blame this on Snape. Then she remembered that the Malfoy library had been the source of both _The Book of Small Changes_ and Daryavoush's commentary. Carefully she projected an image of the two books, side by side. Yes, he did recognise the binding of the Daryavoush. Puzzlement remained.

She asked, "You've heard of _The Book of Small Changes_?" and waited for confirmation (not really a surprise, even if he didn't know his family library held a copy), then went on, "It has a long and complicated and very secret ritual called Ending Stasis."

He did not wait for a further question. He did not know the ritual, but the name alone excited him enormously. Patiently Hermione waited out the fireworks display, and then the mix of hope and fear that made her nearly as sick as it made him.

While Lucius was still wrestling with his emotional response she went and sat beside him on the bed, after pulling the sheet away. What was there to be afraid of in helping a helpless man who was both elated and terrified, a man who for whatever reason had been unwilling to allow her to do something he knew she was averse to?

When he calmed down she parted his legs, as before, and moved to kneel between where she could comfortably reach him with her lips.

She put her hands on him first, stroking, cupping, and felt both his physical response and his continuing mental reluctance. She slipped one hand down to cradle his balls, beginning already to tighten, and thumbed the finely-haired velvety skin of the sac gently, before she paid particular attention to each in turn.

She said, "Why don't you turn off your head and think with your cock, Lucius? Most men don't seem to have a problem with that."

She got a flash of feeling that she was almost sure would translate as "arrogant little Mudblood", but there was no more rancour in it than had been in her suggestion.

"Yes, yes, do be quiet," she said soothingly, and leaned forward and started licking the half-erect cock presenting itself to her eagerly, while she petted the silvery blond floss surrounding it.

It did not take long at all. His body was very ready, and hardly to be restrained. While she was more willing than she would have believed possible, doing this was more like attending to the needs of a sick patient than something she herself might gain enjoyment from. She took him into her mouth, wrapping her hands around him so that he was completely enclosed, but she did not use her fingers to pump him. She did not know how picky _The Book of Small Changes_ was, and would take no chances, just held him firmly while her lips sucked vigorously on him or her tongue gently lashed the head of his cock.

It seemed quite extraordinary that no part of his body responded, when his sexual organs were fully excited: no movement, no muscular tension, no hastened, harsh breathing, no flush of colour in his face, no sounds of any kind. She suddenly resented both Stasis and _The Book of Small Changes_ very much on his behalf instead of her own. If she thought this limited response was weird, how must it feel to him? It must drive cruelly home his imprisonment inside his own body.

Afterwards, when Lucius was sinking back towards both physical and mental calm, and a sort of peaceful ease that was ordinarily foreign to his mind, Hermione found that she was crying. She thanked Stasis, then, that he was still blind, and tried not to make a sound. She let him slip out of her mouth, and without looking wiped her lips on the towel she had brought with her, then carefully spat. She had made the effort to swallow for Ron, sometimes, but she was not going to do that for Lucius Malfoy, however suddenly sorry she was for him.

Nonetheless, when she had washed out her mouth and wiped him off with a warm wash-cloth, she lay down beside him and pulled the sheet over both of them, and held him warmly, her head tucked into his shoulder.

Only then did she find out he knew she had been crying. He showed her a fairly abstract image of tears falling, and behind it she could feel regret.

"It wasn't you," she told him, "it was that book. I think I was angry, as much as anything. Don't fret about it, Lucius. It's done, that's what matters. You have your hearing back, and it's not on credit any more."

He accepted that quietly, and did not try to communicate with her further.

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈

When Hermione arrived in Snape's laboratory at dawn on the day of the next stage of the ritual she said as soon as she saw him, "Done."

As briefly to the point, he said, "Normal intercourse."

She sighed. "I can manage that. I suppose. Yes. Two to go after that. Let's hope their imaginations didn't get too overheated."

"I don't know." Snape sounded uneasy.

She reminded him of what had been her consolation: "Irene Argyra lived through it."

"And was doing it for her husband."

She sighed. "Did you need to remind me? There's no more information leaking out from behind those blank pages?"

He shook his head, so they went on to their rehearsal and the few preparations they needed to make so much in advance.

After the ritual for vision was successfully completed that night Hermione again spent quite some time going over the spell-book and the commentaries' texts with Snape. She wanted to be sure there were no sneaky bits that had concealed themselves from him.

When she shared that thought with him he was a little horrified. Then he confessed that, given the ritual's secretiveness, and the certainty that after this point two different sorts of sexual activity would necessarily be required to cement the magic, depending on whom it was being performed for and by, it would be just as well if she checked every word in the commentaries with him, just in case the books gave her a different message. Hermione nodded; she had worked that out.

When she returned home she went to stand beside Lucius before she commanded a dim light in her bedroom with _Lumos_. After so long, a bright light might be enough to do more than blind him temporarily; it might do damage. Or was that Muggle scientific thinking again? When she lifted the eye-mask his eyes opened abruptly as light penetrated the thin skin of his eyelids for the first time in six months, and focussed on her almost at once. She felt his astonishment, and felt him driving back the need to weep, too.

Hermione sat beside him quickly and gripped his shoulders.

"You've probably been able to see for a couple of hours," she said quietly, "but of course it's been dark in here, and you've had your eyes covered." She went on, "We started the ritual for sight at eight o'clock; it's nearly midnight, now."

Hermione felt the question, and involuntarily answered mentally rather than in words, giving him an image of herself standing inside a blur of lines traced in hot wax and sand and sea-water, wand lifted towards the gold cauldron, and of Snape standing watchfully back, one hand resting on a large leather-bound book.

Then she smiled ruefully, and put it into words. "I do the spells. Severus translates for me. Or rather, he teaches me the spells by rote, because they don't want to be translated. He can explain the intent. I have to do the spells, even though he's the one who can read them, because it has to be a woman."

Dryly she repeated what _The Book of Small Changes_ said: "'You will then do as you must, within the next ten days, woman to man or man to woman, as is written.' Then it takes study of three separate books to find out what's 'written' this time. It's not visible until just before the spell is to be cast."

Lucius enquired, with remarkable delicacy, what she would have to do to confirm the spell for vision, with an image of Hermione sitting at his side, one hand on his body, and a small pair of flashing question marks.

With careful cheer she answered, "Just straight sex. Well, I don't know about you, Mr Malfoy, but I think of it as straight sex. No alternative action, this time, but the real man-woman McCoy."

Hastily she corrected that, and for want of words, or rather from a reluctance to use vernacular terms, she flung at him an image of herself astride his hips, moving rapidly, followed by a diagram straight out of one of her medical studies textbooks. She could feel his mental laughter before he sobered, and a sense of apology.

Hermione shrugged her shoulders. "You didn't ask me to do this, Lucius. No one made me do it."

She did not mention that Severus Snape had been less than forthcoming; initially he had probably not been aware that anything but spell-casting was required.

She finished, "Draco is my friend, and you did your best to protect him. So let's call it square."

A frivolous image of an outlined square with a question mark dashing about inside it, bouncing off the lines, presented itself to her, and she laughed aloud. "What can you expect from me but Muggle metaphors? Draco got used to it; maybe in the next month or so you will too. His life is worth this. So is yours, I find."

She stood up, saying, "I'm very tired, I need to sleep."

She did not ask if he could go to sleep; she knew very well by now that he was fully conscious all the time. She did not know how his brain could cope with that; even in Stasis there should be experiences to process.

She only said, "Would you like me to leave the candles lit?"

A small red circle with a slash across it popped up briefly, and she nodded.

"Thanks, Lucius. I'll see you in the morning."

When she was ready for bed, however, she hesitated, then asked, "Would you like me to sleep beside you?"

Instant assent was trailed by uncertainty.

She said, "I wouldn't ask if I didn't feel like doing it," and got under the sheet with him, pulling the light quilt up over both of them. "Goodnight."

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈

Hermione overslept a little the next day, a Sunday. Later she spent mutual free time with Snape, starting to understand and commit to memory the spell for the restoration of bodily movement. As she might have expected, this was both elaborate and long.

Once Snape had taken her through it for the first time she bit her lip and said, "It's going to take a long time to learn all that."

After a moment she added, "And I meant to spend more time at home with Lucius, too. Well, the house-elf will just have to hold books for him."

"How is he liking being able to see again?"

"Very happy with it, what do you think? Ever since he got his hearing back I've had Tiko read the _Daily Prophet_ to him, and the more sensible bits of _Witch Weekly_ , and anything else he wants. Tiko was still doing that this morning while I had breakfast, I suppose because reading something as large as a newspaper without the use of your hands, even when you're propped up on pillows, is difficult.

"When I left he had half my library strewn over the bed, and Tiko turning pages. I told him he'd go blind if he went on reading at that rate, and it's remarkable how easily he passed on the image of a thundercloud scowl without being able to change expression. Then he had the nerve to tell me that if I wasn't blind he wouldn't be. He's become very good at communicating in images."

"You taught him," Snape reminded her.

"Yes, well, images only need practice. He had every motivation. And to simplify things I've found more useful shorthand signs in the Muggle world than among our kind, that's certain."

She was not sure what Snape's rare approving smile was for, but did not reject it on that account.

Hermione spent the rest of the afternoon committing the ritual to memory, and the magical processes it required; she had found doing it this way made learning the nonsense syllables of the spell easier, as she had something solid to tie them to. Later she started work on the spell itself. Well into the evening Snape sent her home after he found her dozing over the pages of Irene's overview, and told her to sleep.

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈

Classes ended early on Monday, and Hermione decided that she would give herself a rest from learning the spell. Instead – what a pleasant change – she would pay her debt to the ritual and have intercourse with Lucius. Thinking of the event in severely clinical terms made it a little easier.

Once she could never have imagined anything she was less likely to choose to do. Hermione doubted if merely wishing to be a good Samaritan – a metaphor opaque to the wizarding world, what did they say to mean disinterested helpfulness? – would have been enough to get her voluntarily into that, not with him. Perhaps these months of being close to him had made that difference.

Her mind frivolously wandered away after metaphors, reflecting that disinterested helpfulness must be quite rare if the one reference had persisted for two thousand years. Irene had certainly not been disinterested; she had been passionately determined to rescue her husband from what she believed to be an undeserved punishment. Though it did seem likely she had loved him enough not to care how deserved or not it was.

Hermione thought how strange it was that after more than seven years in the wizarding world, when she had spent less than two months of the year with her Muggle parents, she still obstinately thought as a Muggleborn. Her language was still heavily laced with Muggle terms, though nowadays most of her cultural references were from the wizarding world, and her approach to resolving problems was almost invariably scientific rather than magical. There had even been the odd occasion when the Muggle science studies she had kept up during the summer vacations, determined not to be helpless and ignorant, had given her knowledge not available to the wizarding world.

Only a few months ago Madam Pomfrey, whom she had recently been invited to call Poppy, had been helpless to bring down a high fever in a patient by magic. Poppy had been desperate to find a stronger spell, but Hermione had pushed her into using simple Muggle physical means, immersing him in a bath full of ice-water. That had worked, and Poppy had been unduly impressed, asking if it was something new she had learned in her Muggle medical studies.

Hermione had laughed till her laughter turned to hysterical sobs, which Poppy had dealt with in a very old-fashioned way common to both worlds, and then explained that no, you could see that kind of thing on Muggle television any day of the week. Explaining television was rather harder; she had finally settled for "Muggle entertainment like a play presented entirely in wizarding photographs". Poppy had not been impressed by that, but conceded that if it could spread useful knowledge it might be worth having, for Muggles.

Reluctantly Hermione forced herself to start thinking about what she was planning to do with Lucius, rather than almost anything else that darted into her frightened mind. First, the image she had given him, of herself astride his prone body, was how she would need to do it, and that in itself should be easier than sitting in his lap, compelled by his hands, or, far worse, lying under him.

She told herself, not for the first time, or probably the hundredth either, that she would be in control. That was the key to mastering her tendency to panic. _The Book of Small Changes_ should not object if she used her hands to rouse Lucius completely, and only then mounted him; that would be very difficult to do otherwise. It would make the experience more tolerable, too. Using her hands kept him at a safe distance. She had not been precisely clinical about it, the last two times; she had even found a certain enjoyment in it. She suspected, however, that it was power, rather than sex, that she had been enjoying, however aesthetically pleasing his body was. Certainly she was not interested in having a climax herself.

When it came to do the thing, she found that Lucius objected to her lack of interest. It took quite a lot of mental to-and-fro, and in the end Hermione asking explicit questions aloud, to narrow down what it was he felt, to make him articulate it, and to understand why he wanted her to join him in sexual pleasure. It was a relief to discover that what she looked on as mere male pride (powerful though she knew it to be) did not lead him to object. It wasn't a feeling like "if a woman has sex with me of course she will have an orgasm".

Eventually, with astonishment, and against his resistance, she discovered it was a sort of tenderness moving him. Hermione planned to do for him something she very much did not wish to do. He felt it would be easier if she sought her own pleasure as well as his.

At last she compromised, saying, "If it happens, it happens, but truly, Lucius, I don't feel like making a lot of effort for it. This is for you, not for me."

His resignation had a distinct flavour of "unnatural martyr" to it. Certainly the word she supplied for his feeling was hers, not his.

One thing the argument had done: Hermione was not, at present, in the least frightened of having intercourse with Lucius Malfoy. It seemed like a good time to do it. She did not, this time, demand fastidiously that he be absolutely and freshly clean before she touched his body. She knew quite well he was clean; Tiko had seen to that as he did every morning. She found, too, that she looked forward to smelling sweet grass, and winter air, and later sea breeze on a remote beach, rather than soap, however carefully chosen to match his body.

She started by tasting his mouth. That was something she had found real pleasure in, and she wanted it again. She knelt astride his hips and kissed him, at leisure and at length, playing with his hair, stroking his chest, sucking on his tiny nipples, enjoying all the different tastes and textures. Her mouth drifted to his throat, but the absence of a pulse there was disconcerting, so she returned to his mouth and then started kissing his closed eyelids. They fluttered, and she ran a light tongue caress along his lashes, first one eye, then the other, then outlined with her tongue the elegant shape of the eye itself and the bones of brow and cheek.

At that point she received a rather insistent message: "Enough play, get serious!"

Hermione laughed softly, and told him, "I thought you wanted me to join you? If you do, you'll have to wait a while yet."

An image of over-excited, highly coloured exclamation marks, dancing impatiently, and flexing suggestively, presented itself, and she lifted her head long enough to say, "If you can make so clear and fancy an image, Lucius, you're not in that much of a hurry to get down to business."

When she slid further down his body she was already aware that it would not be necessary to use her hands to bring him to readiness, but she touched him all the same, first with a stroking finger, which got her a pained mental scream of frustration, then firmly, taking him in her hands and kneading him. Quite evidently that was more appropriate.

Cautiously she touched herself with a fingertip, and was surprised to find herself quite damp. She had not expected that. Touching him was almost more aesthetic than sensual, though she had felt a growing warmth, but while her mind had been appreciating his body as a living art work her own body had clearly responded to it more basically. Thoughtfully she moved so that she could caress his erect length with those full, wet lips, and got an instant, strongly positive response, both physical and mental.

Show time. She took him in her hands again and placed him carefully, then slid on to him, slowly. There was no discomfort at all, and she felt him register that with approval (and a sort of "See, I told you so!" hanging in the background). Rather more briskly she seated him fully inside her, then she began to move, carefully angling her body as she had learned to do when making love with Ron, to try to ensure that she achieved orgasm with him rather than needing to stroke herself, or have Ron stroke her, afterwards. She had effectively forgotten her belief that this would not work with Lucius. There was pleasure in this movement, no pain or even discomfort, and how could she be afraid of a man who was not only incapable of compelling her in the slightest way, but also very willing for his body to provide her pleasure, in whatever way seemed good to her to choose?

When Hermione felt him climax inside her – distinctly different from the normal feel of having a man thrusting hard to achieve that – she was able to let herself go too. Later, lying across him, her hands idly flexing in his hair, and her tongue occasionally stroking the nearest nipple, she felt very pleased indeed with herself.

Her own climax had been satisfying, but the real achievement was knowing there was no need to be frightened of Lucius – certainly not while his control of his body was out to lunch like this. A Lucius in control of himself, and physically able to control her, might be different.

Lucius appeared to be a very contented man, when she roused enough to check for his state of mind. She ignored the suggestion that she do that again, some time soon, but she did not reject it, either. He did not understand the principle of inoculation, but she thought it would make a good excuse, if she ever found herself shocked at the idea of actually wanting to make love with Lucius Malfoy. Only later did her choice of words surprise her.

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈

**Movement**

 _ritual date Thursday 16 September 1999_

That confidence sustained her through the next few days of hard work committing the longest spell of all to memory. It wavered when, on the morning of the ritual to restore movement, Snape refused to tell her what she had to do with Lucius to confirm it.

He said flatly, "Concentrate, Miss Granger. Tonight will be very difficult; you don't need to be distracting yourself with speculation."

After he had snapped at her for inattention three times in the first two minutes of the full rehearsal of the spell she apologised, pulled herself together, and forced herself, for the next couple of hours, to concentrate solely on the words of the spell and sketching out the associated movements and actions.

At the end of the rehearsal Hermione sank down onto a chair and said thankfully, "I'm glad I only have to go to classes now, not to give them, like you."

Snape did not seem concerned with his own mental weariness; he had been less stressed than she. He asked, "A long day ahead? You need a good rest this afternoon, to relax, and prepare yourself."

"I'm cutting the afternoon seminar," she admitted, "I have permission to attend a different one, this week."

Snape's faint smile had its customary sourness, but that seemed only token when he remarked, almost affectionately, "A most conscientious student."

He packed her off to St Mungo's before she remembered he had still not told her what the sex magic next required of her, but she was tired enough not to care by now, and for the rest of the morning was glad to be able to think of nothing but the demands of diagnosis using a wand.

Hermione did rest, and returned to Snape's personal laboratory confident and prepared for the exacting ritual ahead. That went faultlessly, though it ran almost to midnight. They were another hour cleaning up afterwards, Hermione soaked in nervous sweat and Snape not much better. She accepted when he suggested she take a bath, though she chose the Slytherin girls' bathroom rather than his own, which he offered her. A cleansing spell refreshed her clothes and robes sufficiently for her to put them on again without distaste.

She did not repeat her demand to know what was next for her. By now she suspected strongly it was going to be something she would dislike; there were, after all, not too many options left for different sex acts between a man and a woman. Tomorrow night would be soon enough to hear the bad news.

She was tired enough to crawl into bed and sleep instantly without any exchange with Lucius beyond a brief, "Good night." She slept in her own bed.

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈

Severus Snape had passed on Professor McGonagall's invitation for her to join them at the professors' table for dinner at Hogwarts the next night, since she and Professor Snape were doing so much work together. Hermione accepted, thinking this was going to feel very strange, after the seven years just completed of sitting in the Great Hall looking up at the school staff. She knew all of the teachers.

Minerva McGonagall welcomed her formally, but she did not announce her presence to the students, which relieved her. Nor did she quiz her about the ritual she and Snape were carrying out, or their progress. In the end, after some enquiry from Poppy into the progress of her Healer studies, she and Snape and Aurora Sinistra had a scholarly conversation about research methods into which Professor Flitwick put the occasional sentence, in between discussing school affairs with the Headmistress.

Afterwards Snape left her in his sitting room while he conducted his usual sweep of the Slytherin dungeons, looking for signs of problems, she knew by now, rather than evil-doers. When he returned he took her to his laboratory and fetched out Irene, and the two commentaries, but not _The Book of Small Changes_ itself. Once they were seated at the reading desk he opened Irene's _Ending Stasis_ to the section on the ritual for movement, and had her read that again. She raised her eyebrows at him – it briefly vexed her that she could not cock a single eyebrow, as Lucius Malfoy used to be able to do.

Snape said bluntly, "Irene didn't turn a hair at the sex in this part of the ritual, but I expect you will, unless you and Mr Weasley were rather more adventurous than I would have expected."

With resignation Hermione said, "Thank you for that consolation, Professor Snape. Why don't you just tell me the worst, then go away while I scream and throw things?"

"Anal intercourse."

At her frozen look Snape opened his mouth again, scowling, but Hermione said hastily, "I know what it is, you don't have to be more explicit."

She closed her eyes, bent her head, and sensed Snape was watching her whole body close in on itself, while she wrapped her arms around herself and hunched on the stool for a few minutes, every muscle tensed. She felt much smaller, suddenly, and much younger.

At last Hermione lifted her head again, though the tension hardly relaxed at all, and said without emotion, "Oh Merlin. That was number two on my list of likely, and number one on the hate-like-hell-to-do-that list. I've never done that with anyone, and I don't want to do it now, either. I kept getting stuck on _how_ I could do it, when I could make myself consider it at all."

Quite gently though without obvious sympathy Snape said, "I can tell you how to make it as easy as possible."

Drearily Hermione replied, "So can textbooks. I read up on everything the books said was possible a few weeks ago, once you told me we were doing sex magic too, just to stop myself having nightmares. It doesn't help."

She shook herself. "No use going catatonic," she muttered, and at his look of enquiry said impatiently, "Oh, freezing with fright. I must stop this. I'm using more Muggle technical terms than ever now I'm living entirely in the wizarding world. Do you realise that this summer I spent a total of two days with my parents?"

"Concentrate, Miss Granger," Snape said, sounding unsympathetic. Rather ruining that effect he asked, "Does using their language help you to keep it at a distance?"

"Yes," she said ruefully. "It's just a form of twittering with terror; don't take any notice."

"If you go about it carefully," he offered, "anal sex doesn't have to be a problem, even for a woman, who probably won't get out of it quite what a man would."

Hermione snarled and Snape withdrew the explanation he had been about to make. No doubt her textbooks had told her all about the male prostate too, and maybe more than he personally would wish to know.

"This won't get baby a new pair of shoes," she sighed, after another uncomfortable silence, and did not bother to apologise for obscurity this time. No doubt the general intent was clear. "All right, Professor Snape, tell me."

So he gave her the same lecture he would have given to any adolescent boy afraid of his own curiosity, and if some of it sounded a trifle odd when addressed to a woman the sense was clear: prepare carefully, use lots of lubrication, keep your muscles relaxed, go slow, avoid major or sudden movements....

"At least," he finished, "you don't have to worry about cautioning your partner to be careful."

Her eyes widened, and she sounded panicked as she exclaimed, "Don't I? That ritual we did last night has given Lucius movement back – Snape, I do not want to be raped by Lucius Malfoy for real!"

Snape was concentrating too hard on soothing her alarm to take her up on her thoughtless exclamation. "Calm down, Miss Granger, and remember what Irene said about being afraid the ritual at that point had not worked properly for her husband. She doesn't say any more, but it seems to me that the ability to move the body and its limbs may come back by stages, rather than all at once."

"In that case," Hermione said with shaky resolution, "I am going home to Lucius to get it over with right now, before he's got much control over how it's done."

"Test," he advised, "and find out how much movement control Lucius does have now. And bear in mind – it's true he can be an inconsiderate bastard, but he owes you a lot, and he may remember it."

Hermione allowed her expression to show her doubt of that, and noticed Snape clearly was thinking she might know Lucius a lot better than he had supposed.

Although she had felt that Lucius was being honest with her, in their mental contacts, there was the possibility that he had learned to conceal things from her: easy enough, since communication was all in the form of deliberately constructed images. On the other hand, he had certainly not had much success concealing strong feelings from her. And on the third hand, when he did have speech back, he would certainly be able to lie to her.

Snape forged on, over her alarm, "The other thing is, if he wants to be helpful, to make it as easy as possible for you, he has the experience. Though it always seemed to me Lucius never really liked having sex with his own kind, it was something he made himself do – some arcane Malfoy principle, perhaps. Not that that helped his partners, I suppose."

Hermione snapped, "That's really encouraging – I have to have unnatural sex with a bastard who doesn't know what consideration is, and on top of that he doesn't like it! If he can control his body, and he wants nothing more than to get it over with – Aaagh!"

She broke off abruptly and Snape said anxiously, "He won't like it if you tie him to the bed, either, Miss Granger, but you can do that, if you need the added security. It might help a little."

She shook her head. Then she said, a lot calmer, "I think you're wrong about his not liking it. He said once –" she stopped again.

Very sharply Snape demanded, "Don't tell me he had Potter as well as me!" For a moment she stared at him, then closed her mouth and shook her head firmly. "Lightning blast Lucius, how many students in this school has he tried to corrupt?"

She waved off that concern. "I don't know that he made a habit of it, but from something he said, he'd used it with a younger male friend in a stressful situation, and to take their minds off that they – ah..."

She eyed her former teacher warily, trying to estimate the degree of propriety he would require.

Snape offered, "One of the current expressions is 'fucked like bunnies'."

Hermione stared, then giggled, then gasped, "Have you ever seen rabbits mating?"

Bemused, Snape shook his head.

"The male goes at it like a crazed clockwork, it's true, but when he's done the poor little thing just – just _falls off_ , and lies there panting."

She laughed harder, and before her laughter overcame her reflected that probably no one had ever brought Snape so close to breaking up. He had choked, then snorted, before he folded his lips tightly.

When he spoke, though his tone was stern, his lip was quivering slightly again. "I shall treasure that image. I would advise you not to have it in your mind when you next see Lucius, though."

The semi-hysterical laughter cut off. "No," she agreed more soberly, "but maybe I'm not as frightened of him as I used to be."

He cautioned her, "Don't forget that for the first time in a long while Lucius may soon be in a position to do whatever it is he happens to want. You said a few weeks ago he was both polite and patient; remember he's a Slytherin. We wait till the right moment, and we don't well tolerate being laughed at."

She bit her lip, hard, and he said sharply, "Don't do that!"

She exhaled deliberately slowly, then said, "Living in a war zone does really strange things to people's heads – it did to Harry, and to me, and maybe to masterful Mr Malfoy, too. I think I'll go home, Professor Snape, and take your suggestion: I'll see how Lucius is. For that matter, if he has only partial movement, he may be a very frightened man right now. Certainly this morning he was quite uncommunicative, and I haven't seen him since."

Snape was thinking of suggesting to her that Lucius Malfoy hardly deserved consideration of his fears from her, before he realised that the prospect of being needed, and able, to help him was steadying Miss Granger considerably.

Before she left he arranged that she should return the next afternoon, to start learning the spell for the last ritual, for restoration of speech.

He said darkly, "Not that I'm sure the world really needs a Lucius Malfoy able to talk," which made her smile faintly.

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈

Hermione went straight to her tiny bathroom for a self-indulgent shower and made preparations along the lines her textbooks suggested. Then, in her dressing-gown, she went and sat down beside Lucius in the dark. She kept a hand on her wand, in a pocket, just in case Lucius Malfoy the predator was back. Her free hand touched him, then sought for his hands; as usual his arms lay at his sides, hands slightly cupped and inward turned.

As she sought for him in her mind she received an overwhelming sense of relief replacing fear, and knew that something was disturbing him very much.

"Lucius? Can you move at all?"

The apprehension returned full force, and she felt his right hand rotate then move gently beside her hip, the fingertips caressing lightly as his fingers opened and closed like Crookshanks' claws kneading. She took the hand in her left, and abandoned her wand, reaching over his body to take the other hand. That too could move, but not beyond the wrist. She questioned him carefully, and discovered he could also move his toes and feet, swivel his ankles, open his mouth and lick his lips, twitch his nose, and turn his head a little on his neck, but no more.

She said reassuringly, "Then movement is starting to come back. That's good."

She received a panicky simplified image of a body outlined in black save for the flesh-coloured extremities, with several large red Xs dashing frantically about, unable to settle, but clearly conveying a deep fear of continuing paralysis. Lucius had certainly adapted very thoroughly to the Muggle use of signs and symbols.

"Easy, Lucius. It should be all right. Snape says Irene's book suggests that this is gradual, rather than all at once. Control of all bodily movement involves much larger systems than say, hearing."

She clasped his hands together and wrapped her own about them, hoping to calm him. "I wish I'd realised this before we did the ritual, the night before last, but I had no idea. I could have warned you. I'm sorry, Lucius."

There was no sense of blame in his mind, rather of gratitude. Hermione reflected that Lucius Malfoy must feel very unlike his normal self a lot of the time these days. This was probably not the best time to reveal to him what the sex magic needed next; let him get some ease of mind back. On the other hand, she didn't want him feeling too confident and in charge; after six months of Stasis it might go to his head, and in any case his ability to control himself might be severely eroded. Tomorrow night, perhaps.

The following evening Lucius's hands were capable of a stronger grip, but he still could not exert much leverage. He could now move his forearm from the elbow, but not lift his arm. Similarly, he could rotate his lower leg from the knee, but not raise the knee much itself.

Hermione made encouraging and approving noises, and discovered Lucius had a much better control of his emotions now that improvement was clearly discernable. She took the opportunity to point out that while Tiko had been spending hours each day exercising his muscles, this was not going to be as effective as his doing it for himself.

Lucius must have had a flash of how weak and helpless he would be, if Hermione had not insisted on this from the very beginning, from the time Harry had taken charge of him, and overcame the flare of terror with difficulty. She caught a strong sense of gratitude, and took the opportunity to dismiss it. Hermione suspected strongly that gratitude, in Lucius Malfoy, could have its own traps, which he might bite very hard to free himself from.

Hermione carefully concealed how very disturbing she found it that he was still not breathing, his heart was not beating, and hence his blood could not be circulating either. Stasis still had a brutally tight hold on him.

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈

When Lucius was calm enough to recollect that the most recently performed ritual had to be confirmed by sex between them, he asked what was needed this time. He was anxious to regain full movement, and to do that was prepared to undertake whatever was needed, which was probably persuading her to do what the ritual demanded. His left hand was lying across her thighs at the time, and he felt her muscles tense. He had done his own thinking on the subject, but carefully refrained from sharing his opinions with her. If she had been repulsed by the idea of taking him in her mouth and reluctant to have him in her body, Salazar knew how she would respond to the need for greater intimacy, and by now he understood how vital her willingness was to his recovery.

In a tight little voice that reflected her physical tension she told him, baldly. Lucius was not impressed; that was not something he was in the habit of doing with women, not if the sex was for mutual pleasure, at least. He was able to project to her his wish to soothe her quite untouched by sexual enthusiasm.

In the last few weeks he had gained the ability to conceal his thoughts from her where he felt the need, or at least to pass them through a filter of discretion. It helped that he passed them by images, unless they needed to exchange detailed information, painstakingly spelled out, which required self-control and made self-editing automatic. At last that limitation had a use, though he was not glad of it. Lucius was still prone to spill his stronger emotions shamefully all over her mind, however, exposing himself to her in a way he hated but could not control. Hermione had been strong for him often enough; now he needed to be strong for her, or he might be imprisoned like this for ever. It irritated him profoundly that he could not use words to calm her; it would be so much easier than images, which had an unfortunate tendency to be too immediate.

Hermione became aware of his irritation, and indignation pulled her out of her growing fright. Lucius seized on her restored ability to catch the images he was trying to transmit. He had decided that trying to reassure her about the sex itself was useless just now; it would be more effective to assure her he was harmless, to remind her that she was doing this, not he. Deliberately he transmitted an image similar to Severus Snape's suggestion: of herself standing by his bed, wand in hand, and strong magical bindings pinning his hips and thighs to the bed.

This met with a mildly miserable agreement, so he suggested something else: lie down beside him, holding him as she had several times done, and calm herself by cuddling up against him. It was not clear to him why doing so should calm her, but it had done, and consoled her, before, so he was ready to suggest it again. He followed it up with an image of her hands taking his and wrapping his arms around her body, and of his hands petting her gently. This was astonishingly well received, which again seemed quite irrational to him, but he was not going to quarrel with her emotional reflexes. Hermione seemed to be quite glad to do as he suggested. Poor little Gryffindor, overmastered by her noble impulses.

She cried for a while, then stopped, and sighed, several times, before she murmured, "Thank you, Lucius; I was being stupid."

He sent her a question he had carefully constructed while his hands brushed her hair, and her shoulders, and his fingers soothed the nape of her neck; a pleasing exercise in itself, with the definite assurance of sexual pleasure ahead. Was she afraid of him, or of the act _The Book of Small Changes_ demanded?

It was a relief to discover she was not afraid of him, not at present, just as he recognised that normally her fear would not disturb him at all. He spent a while trying to overcome her fright, which he truly thought as irrational as her willingness to allow contact with his body to comfort her. Eventually he was reduced – after a cautious query as to whether she knew about this – to replaying for her his sensations, being fucked by the young Severus Snape.

He was interested to discover it was not really news to her that they had been lovers. Severus must trust her to a remarkable degree. But then both of them lived more in the mind than the body, though both, he suspected, were capable of far more profound bodily experiences than he had ever managed to impose. He ignored his momentary irritation at that; Malfoy arrogance could have its field day later, if he did this right.

Lucius was amused to discover that she had assumed it had been the other way around, exclusively, and managed to convey to her his scorn at the idea of being afraid of anything Severus could do to him. As an afterthought he also passed to her images of Severus's pleasure in being taken by him. He did not realise how clearly she perceived a difference between his experienced and self-controlled enjoyment, and Severus's incredulous submission to totally new sensations. His main point, however, was not their mutual enjoyment, but the ease with which they had achieved it. He did not reveal how extremely careful he had been not to offend his partner. Severus might have been a skinny eighteen-year-old with very limited sexual experience, but as a magician, and as an enemy, he had been formidable even then. Lucius had not wanted his vengeful attention.

Since Hermione seemed to be quite calm now, Lucius turned to strictly practical matters, and discovered her textbooks had informed her impeccably. His fair eyebrows twitched at the thought of allowing a mere book to dictate one's sex life, before he reflected that he had met people like that before; Severus Snape, for example.

By this time Lucius was suffering from considerable frustration, though it did not express itself physically at all, and he was careful to conceal it. However long it took, he had to wait this out. It did however lead him to encourage her to get the sex over and done with. No point in letting her know that his interest currently focussed on the act itself, rather than the aftermath of security, no matter how much depended upon that.

Hermione slipped off the bed, and moved the sheet back, then began taking off his nightshirt. Lucius wondered why she did not use her wand as she had done last time, but did not ask. Let Miss Granger do whatever kept her calm and happy. Maybe she was reminding herself, yet again, that she was in control here. He could snarl about that some other time, when she was less likely to notice.

She said, "Going for lubricant," and returned with a bowl and a bottle. He managed to turn his head to read the label: olive oil. Fair enough; inert, not able to harm her body or his, but effective, and minimally messy.

He did not know Hermione had stood in her kitchen resisting the impulse to have hysterics while she contemplated the label on that bottle, and also on the other, much more expensive, bottle labelled "Virgin Olive Oil" which she kept for salad dressings. Right now Hermione did not want to think about virginity. She had not enjoyed her previous first time, and that had been with a boy she loved.

She stripped off her own clothing briskly, fighting reluctance. She had panicked about this for days and was tired of it; whatever it was going to be like, just get it done. Lucius did seem to be willing to help, as Professor Snape had suggested. As Hermione straightened up from easing off her panties she caught the image Lucius was projecting: put herself and the bowl of olive oil in reach of his hands and he would see to the rest. She flinched from the idea, but it might be easier than doing it alone.

It felt very strange. Merlin and Nimuë, did it feel strange. A long, slim, slick finger pressed against that opening that nothing had previously penetrated. It pressed gently in against the resistance of the ring of muscle, with the unearthly patience Lucius Malfoy could command when he wanted co-operation, and explored till she relaxed, realising that this was not going to hurt. A second finger entered her, the pressure stronger now, marginally uncomfortable, but certainly not painful. Hermione carefully refrained from visualising his erection. No way he could prepare her fully for that.

Her attention was caught by his other hand, stroking gently and very specifically between her legs, while those intrusive fingers rotated gently, opening her. She gasped and leaned forward involuntarily, willing a closer, firmer touch. Both of his hands responded as if wired to her nerves.

Internally Lucius Malfoy smiled. Got her! He did not let her escape. He was patience itself until he had her helpless and totally dependent on him. So much for her control. She was his now, but he would keep the bargain, do what they had to do to satisfy the ritual, and bring her to a climax the like of which, with any luck, Master Weasley had never given her, and satisfy himself. Oh yes. That, he wanted, and Miss Granger's body was astonishingly addictive. He would worry about that some other time.

Lucius saw that Hermione's mind had decamped long ago. When his fingers withdrew she obviously felt it only as a deprivation, not a warning. Her impatience for satisfaction made her welcome the feel of the blunt, strong, oil-coated cockhead pressing against her. When he pulled her onto it, it hurt her a little, but she only gasped and sank her fingernails into his shoulders.

She was not thinking, and Lucius was very careful that she should not start, encouraging her body to move on him slowly. He had waited for this till he was frantic, but she was further gone. Now his fingers moved on her with delicate, absolute confidence, in time with her movements, and he drove her into dissolution before he submitted to it himself.

It did not occur to him until much later that once he had her welcoming him he could have done what he pleased without reference to her wishes. If he had, quite involuntarily, waited for her to be ready for climax before he acted, that was a worry. Maybe some Slytherin reflex had cut in, knowing he was still totally dependent on her. He could hope. He very much did not wish to need more from Miss Granger than he was already aware of.

Hermione slept, briefly, like the dead. When she woke, Lucius's awareness was waiting, and it was her turn to transmit gratitude. He in turn dismissed it. Lucius was perfectly willing to addict her to his body, but letting her know what was happening was not desirable. He had suggested, each time they had had sex to satisfy the ritual, that she might come to him again solely for their mutual pleasure, and so far she had refrained. Maybe next time.

A couple of months ago that had been the least of his problems, but now he was aware both of his frustration and of the supreme need to satisfy the ritual she was following for him, Salazar knew why. Did she really value Draco so much? She had said nothing about him for ages. Why was this stupid, sweet little Gryffindor torturing herself to save him? In anyone's terms, she owed him nothing. Was she doing this because she loved Draco? He would kill both of them. No, no, that would be a mistake. He wanted Draco alive. He wanted her alive too. Stupid, noble, stubborn little Mudblood. Oh Salazar help me, I haven't fallen in love, have I? It's enough of a handicap to love my son. I won't. I won't.

When Hermione surfaced she found a waiting question mark. She followed it. Why? Draco, yes, she might have her reasons for wanting to help him as she had done over the last year. And he was grateful; he had not known, then, how grateful he would be, how conscious that he could not help his son as much as he wished. It still surprised him, but he was used to it. But why should she help Lucius? So much pain, so much terror, to save a man who was nothing to her.

She had no problems answering that. Lucius was Draco's father. Draco loved him; of that she was quite confident. Lucius allowed her to hold him close for a long time and tried very hard not to fall apart before he asked why care for Draco should create care for himself.

She could not give him words, except by spelling them out, but again the _feeling_ overwhelmed him. How he hated Gryffindors and their emotions. Unfortunately it was impossible single-mindedly to hate the slight young woman who sat up beside him smiling and wiped his eyes as well as her own. Draco would be ruined for ever, if that was what he was associating with. Lucius snapped and snarled restlessly, and turned his head to kiss her fingers.

She kissed his mouth, gently, but not briefly, and when he responded without thinking she lay down beside him again and clung and kissed him as deeply as he suddenly wished to be kissed, while he suppressed his fury that he could not take command as wholly as he wished. Soon. Oh please, soon.

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈

There was over a week before the next spell in the ritual, which as far as Hermione knew would complete the cycle. That last encounter with Lucius had relieved her of an enormous burden of anxiety, since he had proved to be trustworthy and helpful. As a prophylactic against the horrors of whatever the last of the binding sex magic rituals turned out to be Hermione allowed herself to get into the habit of making love with Lucius every night before she went to sleep. Very well, maybe just having sex. Whatever, it was more than enjoyable, it was sustaining.

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈

Lucius was elated, irritated, and alarmed by turns, because he found it more than enjoyable too. He did not tell her that he was feeling less trustworthy by the day.

Towards the end of the ten days between spells Lucius had effectively regained full control of his body, though it was still quite weak. That maddened him as well, but he exercised determinedly, following the suggestions in textbooks Hermione brought home from university for him. It also drove him crazy that he still could not make a sound, and more so that Hermione found his mental explosive visual riffs on the subject amusing, even as she tried to console him.

Tiko had started keeping out of Lucius's way when Hermione was not around, which he belatedly recognised as a bad sign. He had to control his temper. Had to. Nothing must frighten Hermione off before the ritual was completed. Lucius would not acknowledge a feeling that nothing must frighten Hermione, full stop. By the end of the ten days he had some sort of emotional balance again, and Tiko seemed to have lost his wariness.

Though he had better control of himself and his reactions, however, Lucius was confused by his thoughts as well as his emotions. He should be planning for the future. Hermione had taken him in because he needed help, for Draco's sake, and because Harry could not offer him the level of committed care needed. She was not going to keep him for ever, like a pet, and he did not want to be kept. He thought.

Lucius was still, as far as he knew, legally in limbo between life and death. When Draco had last come to see him he had not looked well, ridden by exhaustion and effort to do all the things Lucius was incapable of doing, and might still be. Whether either of them still had a home, property, or even a few galleons in cash he had no idea. Somewhere, he supposed, he had an ex-wife, and was glad of it. Narcissa had left him in anger at what he had brought on her and Draco, and most particularly on Draco; however little he liked it he understood her feeling. At least his personal relationships should not be in a hopeless tangle when he was once more man alive, and acknowledged as such. The resurrection of Lucius Malfoy promised to be rife with confusion and provoking inconvenience of other sorts, at the very least.

And what was he doing? Planning what next to do in bed with a simple-minded, sweet Gryffindor who didn't know enough to be afraid of him. Folly. She wasn't just a Gryffindor, she was Muggleborn, a Mudblood, for Salazar's sake. He should be planning to take advantage of her interest in him, to enslave her more deeply, to use her to claw back to some degree of acceptance and safety, and was deeply disgusted with himself that he could not develop an interest in making appropriate plans. At the very least he should be planning to persuade her to seek Kingsley Shacklebolt's influence in his favour.

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈


	4. Part 4

**Speech**

 _ritual date Sunday 26 September 1999_

Hermione returned after the last spell in the ritual, which would restore Lucius's power of speech, thankful that all the ceremonies had been successfully completed, and profoundly worried that Snape refused to tell her what she was required to do to confirm that spell. He had told her to come back the following night. She had nearly bitten his head off, demanding to know if _The Book of Small Changes_ had suddenly produced more things to be done.

"No," he had said, "but you need to be rested, and calm; so go home now and get Lucius to make sure you don't do anything except go to sleep."

This did not sound good.

Lucius duly took the hint and made sure she could think no more that night, and managed to take up as much of her free time on Saturday as her studies would allow, too. Admittedly he did this more by babbling continually at her than by making love, but Hermione found the one as pleasing as the other. She listened to him for hours on end, and soothed him when he realised how long he had been talking, just for the pleasure of being able to do so, and started worrying about what he had _said_.

Before she left for an afternoon visit to the university library, she said happily, "This is wonderful, Lucius. Talk to me again when I get home, yes?"

Nonetheless, when Hermione returned to Hogwarts after she had collected more reference books, she was deeply disturbed as she made her way to the Slytherin dungeons. There were no more spells or rituals to learn, and only one act of sex magic remaining. She felt that if it had been simple, or straightforward, Professor Snape would have told her after they finished the last spell. So what now? She found herself muttering short, ungrammatical prayers, wondering whom she addressed.

Severus Snape did not look like a man at ease when she met him in his rooms.

Hermione said, "It's going to be bad, isn't it? What did those sons of bitches set up?"

He said quietly, "I'm very sorry. I knew the night before, of course, but I didn't think you needed to know then."

"Tell me! Lucius has been so good, so kind…"

"So have you," he said sharply. "You deserve every bit of consideration, or helpfulness, he can summon up, and don't forget it! But there's not much room left for that."

Hermione closed her eyes. " _Tell_ me."

Bitterly Snape said, "Sons of bitches, yes, testing your commitment to the very end. And his determination, too, possibly. He has to rape you."

"No," she whispered. "No."

He touched her, not something he had done often, and when she did not move away he put his arms around her and pulled her against his chest, pressing her head down, stroking her hair and patting her shoulders, his sense of helplessness obvious.

"Yes. Miss Granger, I'm so sorry. Every possible way."

She whimpered, the misery so softly expressed, her submission to the demands of the ritual so manifestly unaltered, that Snape muttered, "Is Lucius worth this? You did this for Draco, not for him."

"I started doing it for Draco, but now – it's for Lucius too. I have to do it. Lucius was so kind, the other night, maybe he can make this – not too bad."

"And maybe not, too. If he's simply been waiting till it's safe, till he's free, you may have a very bad time, Miss Granger."

Hermione lifted her head from his shoulder, and Snape released her. He could see her resolve, and both approved and hated it. He was not, however, going to argue with someone who was prepared to give that level of dedication. He had had the better part of twenty years doing it, himself, no matter the cost; for him, giving it was better than not. He could recognise, none better, someone capable of that level of commitment.

"Shall I speak to Lucius for you?" She shook her head. Quietly he urged, "It might be useful if – if he knew other people care about what happens to you."

"No," she denied. "I shall tell him, and I will live through it, I'm sure, however he deals with it. And depending on what he does, I will know what he is. And so will everyone who cares, or is interested. Draco, you, Harry..."

"A high price for knowledge."

She smiled painfully. "What is more worth paying for, than knowledge?"

Snape sighed and accepted her decision. "Come and go through Irene's book and the commentaries," he said. "Maybe there will be more to be seen."

"I don't think so," she said softly. "This is quite simple, really. Commitment, or not. Now tell me exactly what I have to do."

Snape settled himself, mentally, and reminded her, "If Lucius is as careful as he should be with you, to the extent the ritual allows, it will make a difference to how hard Kingsley presses the Wizengamot to stop messing Draco about. He can get what he wants, you know, if he insists. He's been quite willing to wait, to find out what Lucius will do. How he will respond."

Hermione lifted her eyes and Snape said quite harshly, "Do not tell him. It is quite fair, after all, that he should be judged on his actions."

"Considered actions, yes, but what about impulse?"

"When you hear what is required, I trust you will agree with me that impulse should have no place in how Lucius uses you."

The final requirements chilled Hermione to the soul, when Snape outlined them, and confirmed them by showing her each line in Daryavoush and Medraut, referring to Irene for confirmation.

She spent a while curled up in Snape's reading chair, reliving nightmares and recent events, before she lifted her head.

"I should go home," she said quietly. "I'll tell Lucius tomorrow morning. I'm not going to spend days over this. _The Book of Small Changes_ requires this to be one ritual, not three. We'll have Sunday, once we decide when to start. And once it's done, the ritual is complete, and he's safe."

Snape swallowed his objections. If it had to be done, it had to be done, and the sooner the better. He did not know that his thoughts paralleled Lucius's: poor little crazy self-sacrificing Gryffindor. He did not think he could ever have done that, not for Lucius Malfoy, at least.

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈

Hermione could not face breakfast the next morning. Maybe after she had told Lucius what they had to do, and seen his response. Lucius, of course, was still not eating – nor breathing, either, which was so disconcerting she preferred not to look at his face when he was speaking to her. Her mind backed up whenever she thought about it.

Now, however, Lucius moved around the flat quite normally, and spent as little time lying on his bed as possible. He was still not sleeping, and now spent his nights in her living room, listening to music and reading, after they had made love and Hermione had gone to her own bed. It was quite obvious that full restoration, not just recovery of speech, rested on completion of the full ritual to end Stasis, and unlike speech would not be given on credit.

Lucius was reading the _Daily Prophet_ when she entered the living room, and looked up with the evident intention of saying good morning, then leaving her some privacy. Then he froze.

He was reading either her face, or her feelings. Hesitantly Hermione looked for him in her mind, and found him. So. They still had that mode of communication, even though he could speak to her now. She had already decided that she would use words in this discussion, however, going for the greater precision.

Hermione sat down on the sofa and said quietly, "We have one more part in the ritual – at least, nothing more had shown up in _The Book of Small Changes_ , or the commentaries, last night. I hope that will end it, that you will be fully yourself again."

"And what sacrifice must you make this time, Hermione?"

He was watching her like a hawk, and she gripped her hands together to prevent them from twisting nervously.

She used Snape's words. "You have to rape me. In every possible way."

Lucius went absolutely still. Was this the stillness of the predator, or was it rapid calculation? It did not occur to Hermione that it might be shock, even though he had already worked out that rape was a possibility.

Lucius said at last, "That seems grossly unfair."

The jury was still out on Lucius Malfoy.

"Ending Stasis was not designed to be fair. It was designed to demand everything that could be given to demonstrate commitment."

Lucius said coldly, "Self-important pricks." It was a novel view. Then he asked, "How thorough does this have to be? Can we get away with nominal rape?"

Some tight-wound core of terror in Hermione eased. Lucius might be acting purely from self-interest, but she did not care about that; it was the results that concerned her.

Unconsciously her posture eased too, and he noticed. Her being frozen with fear was not helping. She knew he wanted out, and that he believed he could afford to be generous. That he had an obligation to be generous, in response to her generosity, would not be at the forefront of his mind. Slytherins did not think like that, and she was aware that Lucius was determinedly avoiding being corrupted by her Gryffindor principles.

Hermione said carefully, "They did not specify, but the verb, Professor Snape assured me, is unequivocal. I wouldn't like to rely, however, on a definition of rape acceptable in Muggle law."

Lucius raised one eyebrow, conveying both incredulity and his permanent contempt for Muggles.

"There's rape and rape?" he asked politely.

Hermione thought about explaining the concepts of date rape, which might involve drugs rather than physical violence, or consent forced by intimidation. For that matter, she would be submitting willingly, so in some people's terms rape might not be an issue.

At last she said, "We could look into all that, I suppose, if you're willing."

"To return to our present problem," he said. Hermione found that 'our' encouraging, though it might just be policy. "Perhaps you should explain the various Muggle concepts to me. We might be able to use them. Even if they are based on too much slithery law-bending to be relied upon to satisfy the ritual, we should be able to find some way of doing so that will not cost you too much."

With the requirements of the ritual reduced to an exercise in comparative law and logic Hermione was able to relax enough to do what came automatically for a debate on ways and means: she fetched out parchment and quill and started making quick notes. She and Lucius migrated to the kitchen table she used as a desk. He was by turns amused and disgusted as she went through what she understood to be current Muggle – English Muggle, she qualified cautiously – thinking on what constituted rape.

Finally he commented, "Wizarding law is much simpler, but I must admit that wizarding lawyers are quite as slippery as Muggle ones seem to be. I think that potions and charms offer the best ways to reduce this to something you can tolerate, afterwards, at least. I would be reluctant to rely on Muggle drugs such as you describe."

"I'd have trouble identifying appropriate drugs," Hermione admitted, "and getting them would probably be worse."

"I could get them," Lucius murmured. Then he qualified, "If I still have any money, that is."

Hermione said cautiously, having avoided this topic so far, "Draco has access to that."

She went on briskly, before he could respond, "I don't really want to use drugs like that either. They don't seem to be very safe. As for charms – there's always _Imperio_ , if you can't think of anything better. Potions – we'd need help from Severus. Perhaps I should speak to him about that this morning."

Lucius asked dryly, "Do you really want to be subjected to the _Imperius_ Curse?"

"No," Hermione admitted, "but it might be better than taking it straight. I don't think _Immobulus_ would be any use."

"You'd be helpless, but fully aware. Not good." He hesitated. "However I do it, you're going to get hurt."

"I suspect that's a requirement."

"They really were bastards," he observed, and she noticed with a little unease that there was some admiration in this judgement.

He said with careful dispassion, "To use a charm I will need a wand; to use it most effectively, I will need my wand. Was it broken, when the Dementor ambushed me? If not, do you know where it is?"

"Draco has it, unbroken," Hermione answered immediately, and felt him relax. "He's been following up that attack, trying to find who organised it – I told you about his keeping Lajos close, to ensure he won't be attacked like that. Most of his time, though, has been going into fighting the Wizengamot and Gringotts for control of the Malfoy estate in your name."

She would leave it to Draco to tell his father about the Muggle therapist.

"And what both Kingsley Shacklebolt and Severus Snape felt was that Draco would be better off if he didn't get into the habit of thinking himself the master of Malfoy Manor. You two are going to have problems enough without that to divide you."

After a moment to digest this Lucius snapped, "Someone has been very clever, for the best of reasons, it appears. But the end result is that neither Draco nor I controls the Manor, or our family money."

Hermione said mildly, "Gringotts do provide Draco a very good allowance, and he doesn't have to cover any upkeep for the estate out of it. They're stubborn, and value money more than anything except their contracts, but they don't see any advantage in having the next Malfoy at odds with them. Draco's all right, and they don't interfere at all. And Severus will help if anyone tries to take personal advantage, whether it's the Ministry, or some other relative."

Lucius muttered discontentedly, but finally appeared ready to admit that as far as possible the interests of the Malfoys were being served. He possibly considered apologising for making a fuss about property (however sacred to a Malfoy) given what they had been discussing, but settled for saying, "Will you ask Severus to get my wand, then, please. I'd rather Draco didn't come here, see either you or me, until this disgusting business is over. Then we can find out whether I can use it yet or not."

Hermione put her hand in the side pocket of her robes and offered him hers.

He looked at her in genuine startlement.

"Try _Lumos_ ," she suggested. "That's not hard."

Slowly he put out a hand, forcing himself to it. She could see that finding out he could not use magic was not something he was looking forward to, but they needed to know.

Gingerly he took her wand, composed his mind, and said softly, " _Lumos_."

A warm light immediately appeared at the wand's tip, and Lucius closed his eyes in what must be overwhelming relief, before he whispered, " _Nox_ ," and put the wand carefully on the table with a hand he could not prevent from shaking.

Hermione did not attempt to calm or reassure him. Malfoys tended to bite when embarrassed by revealing feeling or weakness. Instead she said, with her own calm a thin skin over her apprehension, "We need to speak to Severus."

"Through the mirror? It might be better if you called an owl." There were things he wanted to say to Severus without her overhearing.

"Harry's owl would come; she's been doing errands for me for months."

"You need an owl of your own." Lucius frowned. "I wonder if I could call Ammon? He's not very large, he would fit in here, if you were agreeable to housing one of my owls." He hesitated, then asked, "May I?" indicating her wand.

She nodded.

Lucius hesitated, then said firmly, " _Comitare Ammon strix_!"

They would know soon enough if the spell demanding the owl's attendance had worked.

Lucius apologised, however reluctantly, for being distracted; Hermione couldn't blame him for the anxiety. She decided her stomach could cope with a small breakfast, and said so, but before she could do anything about it Tiko appeared and waved a hand at the table. Scowling a little at this evidence of constant house-elf supervision, Hermione watched a steaming pot of tea, a pile of golden toast in a basket that would keep it hot, a dish of butter, and a set of small jars of honey and jams array themselves before her.

Lucius smiled faintly, and asked, "Seven years at Hogwarts didn't get you used to being served by house-elves?"

"Don't get me started," Hermione muttered, and reached for a piece of toast.

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈

At the prolonged, strangled shriek that sounded outside the window Hermione turned hastily, snatching up her wand, and made the sash window slide up enough to admit the barn owl flapping irritatedly outside.

Ammon flew at once to Lucius, and came to rest on his shoulder, nibbling on his ear with an affection that struck Hermione as either dangerously reckless or better informed than most people were about Lucius Malfoy. Perhaps he was fond of owls, if nothing else. Lucius certainly made no objection, lightly touching the snowy underparts and the golden buff upper wings with their terminal white flecks, crooning softly, and the owl made soft sounds in return.

At last he turned to her, a real smile on his face. "Hermione, this is Ammon. Ammon, I want you to take a message for Hermione and return."

The barn owl extended his foot at once, and she said quickly, "I have to write it yet."

Hermione rose, opened a jar of owl treats kept for Harry's new owl, and offered Ammon a few. The owl promptly deserted Lucius's shoulder, choosing to walk down his arm, being careful in how he placed the great talons.

After their discussion, breakfast, and the addition of a messenger owl to her household, Hermione had no trouble writing a short note to Snape, asking him to retrieve Lucius's wand from Draco's care.

Lucius snapped his fingers for the quill, then, and added his own message: "Do not tell Draco why you want it! Also, please think rapidly about a potion to keep Hermione calm. If you can think of one to make her receptive too, that might help. I don't like this ritual's demands."

He did not sign it; Severus knew his writing. Nor would he show what he had written to Hermione. She shrugged and tied a piece of silk thread round the parchment before attaching it to Ammon's leg.

Hermione sighed, then: more waiting. More fretting. But at least she would not have to fret about whether Lucius planned to take vicious advantage of her submission to the requirements of the ritual.

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈

Ammon returned to him with a brief "Will do," response.

Lucius snarled, and Hermione was not much happier.

She asked him if there were ways to make rape bearable, beyond compelled calm enforced by potions, or spells, and he said curtly, "If you are not ready for me it's uncomfortable. In some circumstances that is called rape. If I am really careless, it hurts; if I am brutal, it hurts enormously. Even if we agree to use a potion, or a spell, even the _Imperius_ Curse, to facilitate or enforce your submission, it is going to hurt, Hermione."

Then explosively he said, "I'm sorry! I can't think what to do that will make it easier!"

She sighed, then said, "Maybe all that is any good is for you to be quick."

"That will be very painful for you!"

"You said it's going to hurt. I know that, Lucius. You're not choosing this. Indeed, I'm grateful you want to spare me as much as possible. I just don't think that much can be done. Maybe it's better to get it over."

Lucius snarled again, then calmed himself forcibly and said quietly, "Salazar spare me, I might even need you to help me. If Severus can't come up with anything – what do you want to do, Hermione? Would _Imperius_ be better than just yielding, being taken out of hand, over and over?"

She hid her face in her hands, and he could see she was trying desperately to control the shivers that would not leave her alone.

At last she said, "It seems to come down to _Imperius_ , or a potion that has a similar effect, or submission without magical help. I don't think there's a lot of difference, Lucius. And it may be that _The Book of Small Changes_ would be better satisfied by submission."

In a low voice he said, "That's what I'm afraid of, too."

At last an owl arrived with Lucius's wand and a curt note from Severus Snape. "I've been looking ever since I found out, and there's nothing. _Imperius_ is probably as good as it gets. Be as kind to her as you can, Lucius. If you're not, one day I shall kill you. Whatever it takes. Or if not I, your son will, or Potter. So be careful."

Lucius read the note with a kind of bitter joy. So she was valued. That was good. But, right now, useless.

He took time to write a brief reply. "No one can help her. I will do what I can to keep it quick, and simple; I can't make it easy. Can you think of a curse that might affect wizards three thousand years dead?"

Hermione was in her armchair with Crookshanks curled up close, purring aggressively. Already she looked exhausted. Very well. Lucius knew that waiting was not going to help. He went to her and held out his hands.

"Now?" she asked.

"Now," he agreed. "You get to choose, though it's not much help," he said quietly. " _Imperius_ , or straight submission?"

She was briefly silent then whispered, "I don't think I can take _Imperius_. As it comes, Lucius."

"Into the bedroom, then. You may as well as have such comfort as a bed affords."

He did not wait for her to rise, but slid his hands under her body and lifted. She burrowed into his shoulder and he murmured, "Easy, Hermione. I'm sorry."

"It's not you," she answered grittily, "it's that curst ritual."

Lucius put her on his bed, not hers, and started with straight intercourse. He was careful, though brisk. It was merely uncomfortable, not painful, even though Hermione was very much not in the mood for having sex. Any more than he was; mechanical hydraulics was a wonderful thing. He made it as quick as he could; it did not seem to him that anything else would help.

When that was over she was breathing rapidly, but at least she was not crying; she did not seem to be shocked.

He whispered against her hair, holding her close and caressing her in a way a rapist would not commonly do, "Hermione! Dear girl, sweet Gryffindor."

"Lucius," came the soft answer.

"Can you bear it?"

"That wasn't so bad. Yes. Don't stop now."

Then, with concern that nearly broke his nonexistent heart, she asked, "Are you all right?"

Bitterly he whispered, "Sweet girl, I'm a man; of course I'm all right."

That roused her. It shocked him then, though later he understood how it happened. She whispered fiercely, "You're not obliged to be all right! This is bad for you, really bad. Lucius, I wish it wasn't happening to you either. Damn them. Go on. We'll sort it out afterwards."

He had tried to decide which she would find more oppressive of what yet remained to do, and now decided that sodomising her could mimic rape quite closely: be a mirror, without being the real thing, if he was careful enough. If passions were not involved it was largely a matter of mechanics, after all. He wondered if he would ever be able to do this to anyone, ever, again. It did not matter.

The ancient wizards who had created Ending Stasis needed him to do it roughly enough, without hurting her unbearably, to convince their doomed-to-oblivion ritual that she was sincere. He could feel it. The awareness was killing him. Her body, her soul, all submitted to the needs of a man she should care nothing, give nothing, for. If Lucius Malfoy could feel it, could not those bastards at the end of time? Stupid little Gryffindor; would she surrender her soul, if he needed it?

For a moment Lucius Malfoy recognised that in the right circumstances Hermione Granger might be willing to make a comparable sacrifice for someone else. His memory told him, relentlessly: Draco, Harry Potter. Quite possibly Severus. Yes, very well; but right now she was doing this for him. He would overturn heaven and earth to ensure she never needed to do anything like this, ever, for anyone else, ever, ever again.

He was crude, and rough, and quick, but he was skilled too, and of course for the sake of his own comfort lubrication was necessary. He said so, to make sure those dead wizards and their thrice-damned ritual understood. She whimpered, several times, and once she screamed, but it was no worse.

After that she could rest, while he waited for his body to be ready to assault hers again, meanwhile performing a meticulous cleaning spell on himself and on her. In the end he had to ask her to use her hands to arouse him; she had had enough practice that she was quite efficient. He was glad she didn't linger over it as she used to do. He encouraged her to bring him almost to the point of climax before he thrust into her mouth, pumping ruthlessly, but not trying to make her take him fully. It seemed to take forever, even so, and he could see the traces of new tears on her cheeks, until at last the mechanical, joyless orgasm was torn from him and he came in her mouth. After two previous climaxes there wasn't much semen, and he withdrew as quickly as he could, giving her the towel she had set ready so that she could clear her mouth and throat. Then he gasped and swayed, and came down on his knees beside her.

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈

Hermione was still trying to get her breath, but forgot that, catching at him as he fell. She could do nothing to support him, but at least she got hold of him in time to push him towards the bed, so that his head landed on the mattress. His breathing was harsh and unsteady, his body was trembling violently, and Hermione put her arms around him in alarm, holding him upright now that his weight was supported on mattress and floor, before she realised what she was hearing, seeing, feeling.

Lucius was breathing, though with difficulty.

She bent her head to his chest, and felt the irregular hammering of his heart; touched the large vein in his throat and felt its confirmation. She forgot her own bodily distress entirely in joy that he was fully man alive again, and in worry that he was on the verge of collapse.

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈

 **Life**

Draco was furious with everyone concerned for about five minutes because he had for so long been kept in ignorance of the rituals that had secured his father's revival, but then he flung himself at his father like a child, and Lucius embraced him awkwardly but with patent willingness. Hermione paid careful attention to preparing tea in the kitchen, to avoid any chance of infuriating either Malfoy by watching him display genuine feeling.

When Draco was calm again, and Lucius too, he said, "I shouldn't have any more trouble with the Wizengamot. I found out who set that Dementor on you. Kingsley Shacklebolt wasn't pleased when I went to him with the evidence, including the confession of the Ministry employee who'd been bribed to forget to cancel her licence to summon Dementors, _and_ with the Dementor concerned, which Lajos trapped for me. The Minister took drastic action, and now the Wizengamot's embarrassed because, guess what, it was their clerk of the court, Dolores Umbridge, who did it."

"So where is Madam Umbridge now?"

"In Azkaban, awaiting trial. She's also been sacked, so presumably the Wizengamot accepts my proofs, just as the Minister did. The Minister was very pleased to have her, as he put it, 'dead to rights', at last. Almost everything else she did during the War was legally within her power, after all."

Lucius said dryly, "It's only Muggles who think that the accused is innocent until proven guilty in court. Wizards have more sense."

Hermione rolled her eyes, but arguing crime and punishment with Lucius Malfoy would be as hard going as disputing about politics, philosophy, or propriety. She said nothing, though she was aware that Lucius glanced at her with a Muggleborn-baiting smirk.

"What I still don't know," Draco added, "and it might be helpful at the trial if you do, is why she did it."

Hermione spoke, then. "She called up a Dementor to try and get rid of Harry. What had you been doing to her, Lucius?"

He shrugged. "Nothing deliberate or obvious, beyond my customary avoidance of her. I can't stand that 'little girl me' act; it's worse than Bella's baby talk used to be."

Hermione shivered involuntarily, and he looked at her sharply, before he said, "I shouldn't have mentioned her." It was typical that he didn't explicitly apologise, however. "Madam Umbridge assuredly didn't want to be limited to being the Wizengamot's servant for ever. She'd want the power she used to have as the Minister's assistant, free to take independent action, and had been working to regain it, though very discreetly."

Draco put in, "Shacklebolt would never give her that job."

"No more than he'd give it to that stick Percy Weasley," his father agreed. "But there are plenty of opportunities in the Ministry for advancement, even if there's no longer a Muggleborn Registration Commission, or an office dedicated to controlling werewolves legislatively, instead of the current experiment of issuing free Wolfsbane and having them take it under supervision." Delicately he added, "She may have felt that I was – hampering her efforts in some areas, perhaps. I too have an interest in advancement, though not, of course, as a Ministry employee." He shrugged. "Veritaserum and Legilimency will get her precise motives out of her, if the Wizengamot's actually interested."

He smiled at Draco in the open way that people outside the Malfoy family seldom saw. "Thank you, Draco; that was good work."

Draco's pale skin flushed slightly at the commendation, but his response was that of a calculating Malfoy rather than of a loving son, and Hermione saw Lucius smile again, with open approval. "It was necessary to be sure I wasn't the next target."

"Very proper," Lucius said, and then asked Draco to review his dealings with the family lawyers.

Draco both amused and annoyed his father by recounting his problems with the Wizengamot over the last six months, trying to get his father's will proved, or to be appointed to administer the estate of someone now incompetent. In any case, they had seemed unwilling to concede that someone who had received the Dementor's Kiss was either legally dead or in need of someone to administer his estate. Draco was still furious at the memory of how close that had brought him to weeping in public.

He had gone back to the Malfoy lawyers and withdrawn his request for probate, declaring that he was not paying for their arguments about the nature of being.

Lucius remarked, "I can see the benefit of the situation not having been resolved, since it means I don't need to take action to have myself declared alive once more. However, neither our lawyers nor the Wizengamot meant it as a benefit. It's a good thing, Draco, that you managed to embarrass the Wizengamot by exposing their negligence; they may be more mindful of our interests, hereafter."

The lawyers had cheerfully carried on petitioning the Wizengamot with new arguments, sure that Draco Malfoy would have to pay up one day, when he needed control of his father's estate, and were soon to be disgruntled to find that the elder Malfoy was undeniably alive. Lucius Malfoy transferred his legal affairs, agreeing with his son that a lawyer who could not stay bribed when one was dead was not fit to handle Malfoy business.

A number of former Death Eaters who had been deliberately or otherwise late for the final battle, or engaged elsewhere, and had not afterwards been discovered or betrayed, shivered at the news that Lucius Malfoy had survived. Some thought his being subjected to the Dementor's Kiss was a hoax, perpetrated to conceal what must be long-term treachery on his part. Others thought it had happened, and considered that his survival meant he must have powers akin to Voldemort's. Was this the next Dark Lord? They took elaborate care to keep out of his way, and out of the way of anyone connected with him.

Severus seemed to be genuinely pleased that he and Hermione had succeeded in their difficult enterprise, and responded to Lucius's invitations more freely than he had done for nearly twenty years.

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈

Lucius Malfoy, fully restored, wand in hand, and again the acknowledged master of Malfoy Manor, took command of his life. He resumed his business interests, and dealt firmly with any employees who had been too creative in his absence before his son had imposed order again. That Draco had been able to do so pleased him. Draco might be too squeamish and cautious to be able to emulate his father's ruthless pursuit of his goals, but Lucius was ready to agree he was intelligent and persistent. It seemed he was also cunning enough to manage family affairs, with longer training. Excellent.

He was politely accepting of his son's decision to study advanced spell casting, with a view to getting a post as an Unspeakable. It was good to know that Draco realised he needed to wait to inherit, and had not been seduced by his six months of power, however constrained. It was also good that Draco should have something that would seriously engage his interest and his intelligence. Lucius warned him that he would find he needed to keep up his understanding of Dark magic, whether he wanted to use it or not.

He arranged for Draco to have the exclusive use of one wing of the Manor. He did not want his heir living in disgracefully limited student accommodation like Hermione's flat (which according to her was better than students generally had), and found his heir was fully in agreement with him there. Lucius noted with satisfaction Draco's weakness for personal comfort. Draco was not likely to run away if he had to endure penury, whatever disagreements they might later have.

Lucius ignored his former colleagues; any meeting could only be embarrassing. Provided they did not harass him he would not trouble them. He took every magical and physical precaution that long experience could devise, and then forgot about them. He remained unaware that for years he was studied from a distance for signs of wishing to rule the world as Voldemort had done.

He would have enjoyed ruling the world, but he recognised that the girl whose bed he still shared as often as he could would have something to say about that. Probably something quite deflating. He was not going to invite that. One couldn't have everything, however regrettable that was.

He discovered that another thing he could not have was for Hermione to move into Malfoy Manor with him as his acknowledged lover. A tentative mention of her giving up her studies to do so got such an incredulous response that he hastily backed away from going so far as to suggest it. Salazar, the girl had a grip on him, and he couldn't seem to shake it. After a while he asked himself why he should want to shake it; it did seem as if he had a quite adequate grip on her, after all.

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈

Hermione regarded her lover's proposal of marriage as an unkind joke, but dismissed it as calmly as she could with another joke: she would accept, if he would reform. He no longer had a Dark Lord to be an evil minion for; no doubt he could go around doing evil on his own account, but not if he wanted to marry her.

When Lucius kissed her with unwonted exuberance and started a Slytherin debate about the meaning of reform and the nature of evil, clearly determined to retain as much freedom of action as possible, she stared at him.

Only then did he understand she had not believed him serious, and abandoned argument in favour of unMalfoylike caresses and assurances that she would be safe with him, there would be nothing to fear. With considerable reluctance he even said that he loved her, which Hermione recognised as the concession to unseemly emotion that it was.

He added hastily, "Don't cry!"

"No, no," she said, blinking furtively.

Lucius pulled her onto his lap and between kisses demanded her definition of reform, and Hermione allowed herself to be distracted, dazedly aware that she seemed to be committed to marrying Lucius Malfoy. Later Draco told her he admired her positively Slytherin ability to ignore the fact that she had given his father what he wanted, and had no position of strength from which to bargain.

She continued to hammer out definitions even while she caressed the white gold ring with the inconveniently large pink diamond which Lucius had put on her finger as soon as he could fetch it from his vault at Gringotts. His great-great-grandmother's, he had explained; the last Malfoy wife married for love. He made a point of telling her that that lady had put a spell on the ring which ensured it could never be given or worn for any reason but love, which made her smile and cry a little, and cling to him, which was always good.

The ring gave Draco some assurance, too, that neither of them was as crazy as he had thought, and said. His father had issued a pre-emptive warning that he would not tolerate debate on the subject of his choice of a wife. Lucius did not think it necessary to require Draco to be civil to her. Their intention to marry did not seem to have affected his son's friendship with Hermione.

Draco had hastily disowned any wish to question Lucius's choice, though he did say, "I think she's out of her mind, and so, in a rather different way, are you. Far be it from me, however, to dispute your freedom to make your own mistakes."

Later he had spoken with a friend's concern to Hermione. She was the one at risk, after all; his father should not suffer too much if he could not have this whim, though not getting her might put him out of temper. She, however, was putting her life in his father's hands.

Hermione admitted, "I know it sounds foolish, Draco – suicidally so, even. But Lucius and I grew very close when he was coming out of Stasis. It's almost impossible to lie, mind to mind – suppress truth, suggest untruth, possibly, but not to lie direct. We can't communicate that way now; it ended when Stasis ended. But I have the memories of his feelings, his unconsidered responses, and the kindness he need not have shown me, at the end. I believe I can trust him.

"And your great-great-grandmother has certainly given me proof that he loves me, if I needed it. Just as important, I suppose, he can be confident that I love him. He's not going to need to worry that I might have gone really crazy and married for money, or influence." She added dryly, "Or good sex, either."

Draco apparently could not bother to display revulsion at the idea of his father having sex; he was a Slytherin.

"All that is a strong motive to reform," Draco agreed, "if he can. I hope you don't think he's going to turn into a Gryffindor's idea of a model citizen, though. No Slytherin could."

Draco dispassionately recommended her not to depend too much on pinning down every detail; it would be far better to get his father's agreement in principle, and argue about actual cases as they arose. With some self-interest as well as Malfoy forethought, Draco also recommended her not to fuss about a little bribery and corruption. His father liked his entertainments, and if Hermione was too rigid Lucius would just start concealing what he did from her. That might make Lucius feel guilty, which in turn might well make him angry, possibly with Hermione, possibly with everyone else; neither would be good. Hermione saw the worth of that advice, though it made her generally unbending sense of right and wrong queasy. It would be unwise to do anything that made Lucius even more Slytherin.

Lucius, however, was starting to treat their discussions as a new party game. Neither Hermione nor Draco thought that a good development, and she put an end to it by winding her hands in his hair, kissing him thoroughly, then saying firmly, "I have agreed to marry you. And you have agreed to reform. Shut up, Lucius Malfoy, please."

Lucius settled for taking her to bed in the middle of the afternoon and later going out to attempt to blackmail Severus Snape into making a potion he wished to drink with his bride at their wedding.

Lucius confessed, blandly, that yes, making the potion was illegal, since the spell it would support was Dark magic which would be binding on his wife as well as on himself, and no, he did not intend to tell Hermione about it beforehand, or indeed ever.

Severus asked sourly why he should do anything to help Lucius compel the young woman he admired as much as any Gryffindor he had ever met, or heard of, to keep a commitment she would be making in good faith.

Lucius, uncharacteristically, looked away before he said, "If I am that sure of her, I will be easy in my mind, and she will be safer."

Severus said even more sourly, "That's a telling argument, Lucius. You're quite sure the spell will bind you equally?"

Lucius met his eyes. "I too will be compelled. I don't believe I need it, but it seems a desirable precaution."

Severus said flatly, "This is a really bad idea, Lucius. If Hermione ever finds out, I don't know if even a binding love spell will hold her. Knowing will make her very unhappy that you did not trust her, and possibly also she will be distressed by knowing that you did not trust yourself."

Lucius frowned, and said arrogantly, "I trust her. She's a Gryffindor, and a particularly intransigent one. She will always be faithful. I just want to be sure she will always love me."

Severus shook his head. "Don't do it, Lucius. If you compel her love you will never know if it's real."

Lucius scowled very darkly at that, but it seemed to give him pause, and Severus went on briskly, "In any case, Lucius, I am not going to make your potion. I have no desire to find myself murdered because you suddenly decide you can't trust me not to tell your wife what a fool you are."

Sulkily Lucius said, "I promised her to reform. I wouldn't do that."

"If you wouldn't do that why are you planning to put an illegal and unnecessary binding spell on her, even before you're married? How does that rate as reformation? No, Lucius, nothing doing."

He added deliberately, "If it's Draco you don't trust you're making another mistake, but you'd better talk to him about it."

Lucius's eyes flew to his, and Severus saw the startlement and then the recognition as the silver darkened to storm-cloud grey.

There was a long pause before Lucius said, "I do trust her. And I should trust him. Since he and I love each other, after all. Obviously we're both flawed. It's only – they're the same age, Severus, and they're very close. He can practically read her mind. I can't. She can't help but be aware I'm old enough to be her father –"

Severus asked dryly, "Have you met her father?"

"Once, years ago," Lucius admitted. "Boring little Muggle, flapping about his only chick, proud of her and not understanding her in the slightest."

"Then you must be aware that there's no way she's going to mistake you for him. And I would recommend you not to be wishing to read her mind. If you could, there would be days when you would be reeling back in horror, believe me, Lucius. Didn't you have enough of that when you were in Stasis and that was the only way you could communicate?"

"I never knew what she thought, though I could read most strong feelings – but all I ever knew of her thoughts was what she told me."

"Keep it that way," Severus said darkly. "You can have fun guessing, instead. If Draco understands her that well she'll never be in any danger of falling in love with him, and that's all you need to worry about. Do you for a moment believe your son is going to be so rash as to try to come between you and something he knows you want as seriously as you want her?"

"No. A curse upon your warnings, Severus. I wanted that spell."

"You don't need _that_ spell. Look for something else, if you want a magical ritual, something gentler. Something that will reinforce your promises, perhaps, without compelling either of you to keep them if you no longer will to keep them. And tell her about it. Has it occurred to you that _she_ may feel uneasy about holding _you_ , Lucius?

"You have a great deal of experience it's going to take her years to catch up on, you're an accomplished plotter and deceiver, and she probably thinks you've always felt entitled to sleep in whatever bed you please, however wrong she is. Maybe you'd better enlighten her about Lucius the faithful husband. She knows how impatient and self-willed you are. On top of that you've made her a promise you very much didn't want to make, if I know you. Knowing all that, she's agreed to marry you. Don't erode her confidence by forcing either her or yourself into commitment." Severus stopped abruptly.

Lucius said dryly, "I'm sure it's good advice, Severus. I should probably act on it. I came here today determined to put that spell on her because earlier she indirectly reminded me that she was serious about that promise I made her. Which, as you say, I didn't want to make. Oh, very well, no binding magics."

Severus suggested, "Go and find something wicked to do that she won't take too seriously."

"What, like a child testing his mother's patience? I should go and kick a Muggle – one who's already knocked down an old lady for her handbag, perhaps? No, thanks, Severus."

"I'm sure she wouldn't mind if you went and kicked Gawain Robards. Or that fool Perkins, who's even more useless now Arthur's no longer his supervisor."

Lucius definitely brightened. "Indeed? I'll think about that, then. Perhaps I'll need to learn to ration these little indulgences."

He smiled faintly, and Severus smiled slightly too.

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈

Lucius had drawn the line at letting any member of the Wizengamot celebrate their marriage. It would give him nightmares, he asserted. Hermione had laughed and drawn his attention to the advertisements for marriage celebrants in the Friday _Daily Prophet_.

Lucius rejected the first he spoke with, after the man suggested a garden wedding for a mid-winter marriage even in one of the more southerly and sheltered parts of Britain, and then as an alternative the release of a cloud of pink doves in the ballroom or great hall of Malfoy Manor. A pink diamond was nauseating enough, though he knew Hermione enjoyed wearing it; pink doves, and their droppings, were nearly as unacceptable as the idea of allowing a lot of Muggles and other unreliable strangers into his home.

He wondered, briefly, if he should ask Draco who had married his ex-wife and her doting new husband, then decided he did not want to know. He found the next celebrant he interviewed so dull as to be almost invisible; he could not imagine that any ritual the man conducted had any chance of taking.

Hermione laughed about the doves and the invisible man, then pointed out that Gringotts offered a wedding service. Lucius looked astonished; he found it hard to visualise the goblins lending themselves to anything so chancy as marriage.

"But they will make an absolutely binding contract, Lucius, if that's what you're concerned about. We will need to be careful what we promise each other."

She was surprised when he kissed her hard and called her brilliant, then suggested they discuss the wording of the promises they would make.

Hermione had earlier annoyed him by bluntly refusing to sign the standard marriage contract Malfoys offered to their wives, and then by taking the much modified version they finally agreed on to a lawyer of her own for vetting.

She had just said calmly, "If you're going to get legal on me, Lucius Malfoy, I'm going to do it right back."

Not meek, his little Gryffindor, no; he forgot that sometimes. Despite her maddening conviction of being right all the time she did not argue with him much. It was going to take him quite a while longer to realise that she saved real disagreement for the truly important, and that she allowed his arrogant conviction of being both right and in charge to run off her self-assurance like water off a duck's back.

When they had almost finished designing their wedding service Lucius said quietly, "There is a magical ritual I would like to include, Hermione, if you agree."

Hermione suppressed the impulse to ask if it was intended to keep her faithful. He had promised her fidelity and been offended when he saw that she was dubious about his ability to perform what he promised.

He had said curtly, "If I promise, I will do it. You forget, Hermione; I love you." He found that easier to say, now. "Your contentment is important to me. I am quite sure you will value faithfulness. I find I do too. There will be no need to doubt me."

Now she asked, "What is it, Lucius? A binding?"

He shook his head. "All it will do is help us to remember that we love each other. You are going to have bad times with me, and I am quite sure I shall have bad times with you! I cannot imagine a more inconvenient wife to have chosen: Muggleborn, indifferent to wizarding traditions and Malfoy traditions, twenty-five years younger than I am, too clever for words, determined to be a Healer even though you'll be a great lady, and thinking house-elves are unjustly enslaved on top of all that!

"No. When I feel impatient with your Gryffindor inflexibility I may need to be reminded that I had a very good reason for marrying you. And when you are tired of my Slytherin focus on my goals rather than your principles you may be glad of a reminder too."

Hermione said dryly, "Plainly I don't need to worry about your seeing me through rose coloured glasses."

"What do they do? Another of your wretched Muggle sayings, I suppose."

"Imagining only the best," she agreed.

"I think I need a clause in our marriage contract about your giving up talking as if you were a Muggle. You're not. You're a witch." Then he smiled, a very Malfoy smile. "I could just punish you when you do it, of course."

Hermione edged slightly closer to him and murmured, "How might you do that, Lucius?"

"Like this, perhaps?"

His hands took a much firmer grip on her and he bent his head to suck her lower lip slowly between his teeth, then bit down on it rather harder than she found comfortable, as he knew quite well, and held it, slowly increasing the pressure of his sharp teeth, though not to the point where the tender skin was broken. Hermione's breath hissed in and she went very still, but then her eyes glazed slightly and she shuddered. Lucius had handled her very carefully, and still did, but he had discovered that biting her like that excited her quite as much as it worried her. The tension between the two feelings made her exquisitely responsive when he released her.

One of his hands slid up her back to twine hard in her hair and he held her for his kiss, at last parting his teeth and soothing her lip with his tongue before he thrust it into her mouth. She was quite indifferent to the compulsion in his embrace. Her hands went around his neck and trapped his long hair, she shifted in his lap in a way that made him groan as she pressed her sweet little breasts hard against him, and her tongue danced with his. Lucius chided himself for being so foolish as to start this without stripping off their robes first, so that he had to imagine the feel of the pointed nipples against his chest.

He moved one hand between their bodies, ignoring her muttered objection, and started unfastening her robes. As soon as she realised what he was doing she brought down her hands and began burrowing through his clothes, opening first his robes, then his formal waistcoat, then the silk shirt. Then she wrapped herself around him instead.

He moaned into her mouth and muttered, "Never mind the wedding, come to bed."

Quite some time later she said seriously, "I don't think you're going to cure me like that, Lucius."

It took him a moment to remember that this was supposed to have been a punishment, and he laughed softly. "I can but try."

It was much later again before Lucius described for her the spell he wanted to include in their marriage vows, and its effects, then gave her the spellbook and asked her to study it. To himself he said, "You are getting positively ethical, Lucius; you'll sicken yourself."

Then he consoled himself by deciding that one day soon, while she was away at her classes, he would do something violent to her CD collection to ensure that the rock music would not play when he was in earshot. He just had to find an appropriate spell. Then he could have the fun of confessing. And then, no doubt, she would work on his spell till she had unravelled it. At least when she was living with him in Malfoy Manor she could have a room he need never enter to play that stuff.

Life was very strange, but rich and satisfying, as never before. He did not think he wanted much to change.

≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈The End≈≈≈LMHG≈≈≈

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written December 2008-January 2009 for wizard_love, for curia_regis. I started writing this story in March 2003, but couldn't finish it before OotP came out and shafted it. So I stopped. Luckily, the turns in canon in DH made it possible again, provided I changed an awful lot! Which I did, and wrote the other half as well. I don't think a fic of mine has ever been more thoroughly edited.
> 
> Thank you, most heartily, to my beta readers slashpine and aunty_marion, and to ragdoll for being a wonderfully generous and forgiving and patient mod, waiting out my writer's block. Without my beta readers, who found massive amounts of extra work for me to do, this story would not be anything like what I so much wanted it to be; they forced me to make it better. Heaven bless all beta readers, who work hard for no reward!


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